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THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER









THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
OR, A VICTORIAN CRIME
BY
FOXHALL DAINGERFIELD
AUTHOR OF “GHOST HOUSE,” “THE WHITE AND GOLD LADY," ETC.

THE
CRIME GUBI
PUBLISHED FOR
THE CRIME CLUB, INC.
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
AT GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, 19 2 8


COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN
& COMPANY, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
FIRST EDITION
-
A-


328
3/33t
FOR
Μ Υ
Η Ε Ν Ν ΙΕ





THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER





Forside
Criterionco
10.23-19
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
OR
A VICTORIAN CRIME
Chapter I
At a quarter past six on that memorable twenty-fourth
of June, Miss Cornelia Hunter opened the blinds of her
bedroom window toward the east and leaning her round
arms upon the white painted sill, looked into the fresh
beauty of the morning. It had been her custom to do
this for many years. She was methodical about most
things, an early riser and on this particular morning, also
as was her custom, she was fully dressed; her flowing
gray lawn morning dress of puffed sleeves and many
ruffles crisp and billowy.
Only one of her servants was as yet astir, and so careful
was she in her way of living that not even the sun looked
in upon her until her hair was in sleek order, the brooch
of her father's face in place, and her flowing, immaculate
garments ready for the day.
Her house, handsome and much larger than she needed,
was built by her great-grandfather in the early thirties.
There was a majesty in its line and proportion and the
woodwork of black walnut had been cut and dressed by
. I


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
the slaves from the broad acres stretching into woods
pastures at the back of the house. Furthermore, Miss
Cornelia Hunter lived alone.
On this particular morning, even at so early an hour,
the sky was taking on that clear steely blue which gave
promise for a scorchingly hot day. Below her window lay
the smooth-clipped yard stretching away to a high privet
hedge through which an arched wicket gate gave into her
garden. At her right, perhaps five hundred yards away,
there stretched the dusty turnpike, still now, like some
sluggish river asleep from spring currents, slipping noise-
lessly over white sand. No early traveler was yet upon
the road, and with a certain pleasure in the stillness and
fresh beauty of the morning Miss Hunter watched the
sparkle of the dew still shining in the shadows on the
grass where as yet no sun had touched. In the meshes of
the hedge faint mists still clung; a fat robin hopped
sedately about in the thin mossy growth under an apple
tree, while from the orchard directly across the two stone
fences bordering the turnpike came the whetting of a
scythe. The whole scene breathed of beauty, rest, and
peace. For it was very early that June morning in Ken-
tucky, and in the year 1890.
Now Miss Hunter was a lady of culture, of respect for
the tradition of her mother's training, so old-fashioned
to the ideas of the nineties, thought so gay. And this
morning of pale heat, looking into her garden, there was
nothing more disturbing than vague plans for a vacation
in the mountains “or even Cape Cod,” she thought, “but


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 3
I don't like Northern ways. Yes, I would rather make
it the White Sulphur.” Her mind strayed past the cool
portals of the“Old White,"its delicious stretches of rolling
velvet lawn, beyond the rows of cottages and densely
wooded mountains with their trails like soft green tun-
nels in the rhododendron. “I might even go on to New
York,” she mused. “I do not mind the city in the sum-
mer, and there is sure to be something playing at Daly's.
Ada Rehan and John Drew in ‘As You Like It.' Though
if I wait until the fall there will be this E. H. Sothern
in "The Master of Woodbarrow. And at Palmer's
the papers have advertised Miss Marie Tempest.”
There was also a lady whom Miss Hunter knew, or rather
her friends in Chicago knew, who was to appear in a play
called “The Ugly Duckling.” For a lady to forsake her
home for the stage, “a married lady," with no reason of
heritage for such a step was, even to the gay nineties,
exciting. “Yes,” she reflected, “I had better wait until
the fall, besides, I need a sealskin sacque and muff.”
Somewhere behind her thoughts of the possible journey
to New York was the arrival of the New York Times
two days late, but her chronicler of interest. There was
already mention of the World's Fair in Chicago, then
three years distant. Miss Hunter admired Mrs. Potter
Palmer and the part she was already playing in this world
event. Mr. Cleveland was popular, and she, a Democrat,
was interested in politics. The Brooklyn Bridge was still
an interest-yes, there were many things to divert her
even should the heat of New York prove as oppressive as


4 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
her blue grass region. “I could take the Vestibule,” she
ruminated. “It is never difficult to obtain a reservation
at this time of year.”
A wave of pleasure spread over her with the anticipa-
tion of a journey, and tapping the white sill she hummed
under her breath a song much in vogue at the time:
“Oh this is the day they give Babies away
With a half a pound of tea!”
Yes, certainly no more disturbing thoughts than these
filled her mind that breathless summer morning.
Miss Hunter's mansion stood one mile from the city of
Harrisville, and her nearest neighbors toward the coun-
try were a family named Appledore, a Mr. Algernon
Appledore, his wife Constance, and their two daughters
Lillian and Elizabeth. As Miss Hunter leaned idly at her
window, her white arms gleaming in the sun which also
glossed her hair, she could see through the dense grove of
tulip and catalpa trees surrounding it the two grim and
somewhat forbidding towers from which the place took
its name. Appledore Towers had been built adjoining the
Hunter estate at a later date by Algernon Appledore,
Sr., or Commodore Appledore as he had been known.
This gentleman had been in the Navy, spent much of
his time in England, and when he decided to settle down
in the blue grass plateau of Kentucky he had brought
with him the grim ideas of American architects in re-
producing an English house of the 17th Century; one
where the gentleman had visited and which he particu-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
5
larly admired. He had an only son, Algernon Appledore,
Jr., and the place with its attendant acres had been
the son's inheritance. Before Commodore Appledore's
death in the early eighties, he, being of a thrifty turn of
mind and seeing that his son had no taste for the Navy,
had bought a partnership in the town's most prosperous
business, which was afterwards known as Appledore &
Erwin, dealers in fine furniture, china, rugs, and de-
cidedly Victorian objects of art. His partner, Mr. Edwin
Erwin, who still came to business, attending in a grim
and methodical manner to the interests of the firm, was,
on the memorable morning when Miss Hunter opened
the window to view her garden, a gentleman past eighty.
At the death of Mr. Appledore, Sr., his son Algernon
had assumed his father's duties in connection with the
firm of Appledore & Erwin, and as he was apparently
liked by the senior partner his future seemed assured.
His father, besides the business, had left a considerable
estate, and Mr. Algernon Appledore, Jr., was recognized
in Harrisville as one of its few rich men. There had
been, prior to this morning of steely blue and increasing
heat, some slight friction between the partners of the
business. But certainly, to Miss Hunter's observing and
conservative mind, it had never assumed proportions.
It had begun apparently with the senior partner's irri-
tation, when a few years after the death of Commodore
Appledore, his son, instead of attending rigidly to busi-
ness as was Mr. Erwin's advice, developed his father's
love of the sea and had in consequence been twice


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
around the world. Globe trotting in the nineties was a for-
midable business. It had been, Miss Hunter remembered,
idly watching the grim towers over the glossy leaves of
the tulip trees reflecting the sunlight like so many dim
mirrors, odd, that while his wife and daughter had ac-
companied that gentleman upon his first circle of the
globe, he had made the second journey alone. And it
was upon his return from this second journey that,
courteous though it must have been between gentlemen
of their station, the friction occurred. Miss Hunter,
watching upon a distant rise of the silver-white turnpike
the first faint cloud of dust, a huckster approaching for
the early market, knit her brows. The fact was that the
town of Harrisville had never gotten the straight of the
story and it faintly irritated her; yet true to her caste, she
had never asked questions, even of her next-door neigh-
bor.
“What can have been their difference?” Harrisville
had asked over their teacups and juleps when there were
gentlemen present. Well, the question was never an-
swered, but as the firm remained intact it really did not
matter. Only at about the time of this “difference,” which
Harrisville decided had no consequence, there came a
consequence which, as the years passed, was to have a
bearing and one which struck very near the home of
Appledore Towers, stern and austere in the hot sun,
shaded and dappled by the tulip trees.
And further it may be well, just here, to give some
picture of the master of Appledore Towers-certainly a


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 7
picture to this day remembered. He was a tall man, and
despite his somewhat somber garb—this was after his
second journey around the world-remarkably hand-
some.
His familiar, rather heavy mustache of the period was
carefully brushed and curled upward at the corners of his
mouth. He wore a long black coat, known as a Prince
Albert, its skirts reaching to his knees, its front closely
buttoned high upon his chest. His linen collar (even on
summer days as when Miss Hunter leaned upon her win-
dow-sill) was high and always immaculate. Below its
close-fitting wings was an Ascot tie of black watered
silk-folded and covering the glossy stiff-bosomed shirt
beneath. In his tie was a scarf-pin-a jockey's cap of gold
with a riding-crop, a last remnant of his sporting days,
when the tie had been pale gray, the coat of conservative
checks swinging back to disclose a vest of a different pat-
tern.
He was a serious personage, fond of reading, and a great
lover of animals. His horses and game-cocks were among
the finest in the state, for then cock fighting was a gentle-
man's sport—as it is to-day, surreptitiously.
This passion for animals had apparently increased,
for Miss Hunter noticed the addition of a formidable
rabbit hutch-this two years before, built in the back
yard of her neighbor's house. And more than once its
inhabitants, either jack rabbits or the more common
garden variety, escaped to play havoc among her hot-
beds.


8
TH AT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Furthermore, he had rather stately manners of unfail-
ing courtesy, and with his inheritance of hospitality he
was a gentleman admired by many, trusted by all, and
loved by perhaps a few.
One morning, two years before the 24th of June,
1890, which all Harrisville was to remember, Miss
Cornelia Hunter had opened her bedroom blinds and
looked across the privet hedge into her garden. It
was her custom, when the dew had dried somewhat,
to descend the stair, her crisp lawn skirts whispering
behind her on the carpet, and enter the dining room,
where her maid would bring her a cup of black coffee.
Afterwards she would draw on a pair of gardening gloves
and, armed with a flat basket and gleaming shears,
would cross the close-clipped lawn through the wicket
gate into her flower garden.
On this particular morning she had had her coffee and
on opening the gate passed along that walk marked with
pink conch shells half buried in the borders, examining
her roses in their first flush of summer bloom. This lady
had not yet put on the wide-brimmed garden hat with
which she was wont to protect her complexion, still fine
at forty and rivaling the conch shells in color. The
dew was gleaming on the grass, and while the morning
would be warm, as June mornings are apt to be in Ken-
tucky, the sun would not strike with force enough to war-
rant thought of her complexion, a consciousness, by the
way, which places Miss Hunter chronologically.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 9
As she bent, stately and fine, over the blush roses,
nothing could have been further from her mind than
the business friction of her neighbors, nor that conse
quence which was to strike its roots so deeply around
her heart.
But it was her neighbor, Mrs. Appledore, who first told
her of it herself.
“Good morning, Cornelia,” a slow, well-modulated
voice came to her across the hedge which separated her
garden from that of her neighbor. Straightening herself,
a rosebud in her fingers, Miss Cornelia looked, surprised,
in that direction. By the hedge, one slim hand resting
on its close-clipped top, stood Mrs. Constance Appledore.
She was a woman of about Miss Cornelia's age, tall, and,
even at so early an hour, like Miss Cornelia, faultlessly
dressed. She, too, wore gardening gloves, but unlike the
other had on a wide white leghorn hat, a twist of lace
around its crown, while further evincing her care of her
complexion a white gauze veil floated from its brim half-
way across her face. She was a beautiful woman, even as
beauty was counted in that day. Contrary to the fashion,
her hair was worn low over her wide, high forehead, ob-
scured by the veil. Her heavy chestnut braids were wound
in a crown about her head. Her eyes were wide and seri-
ous, a certain melancholy in their shadows, always Miss
Cornelia thought, like shady pools, their depths lined
with brownish leaves.
“You startled me, Constance!" Miss Hunter had


10
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
exclaimed as she looked at her beautiful neighbor stand-
ing in her big shading hat watching her mournfully, even
nervously, she thought.
“What can have gotten you out of your bed so early?
While it is my custom I really do not believe "
“I—that is, we are to have a guest,” Mrs. Appledore
said, and Miss Hunter fancied her voice was uneven.
“That is, really more than a guest. A perennial visitor
I might put it," and she smiled faintly. “My husband
has already driven into town to meet the early train
and he—he is to help him with his business.”
If Miss Hunter found this cause for her friend's ner-
vousness sufficient she concealed the fact perfectly. It
was not of her caste easily to show emotion or curioisity.
“But why,” she asked after a moment, "you can't
mean a relation—who is coming to live?”
“No. Oh, no,” Mrs. Appledore reassured. “Not a rela-
tion. A-a friend. I believe he is a friend. It seems,” and
here even though these two Victorian ladies were quite
alone in their respective gardens, the other lowered her
voice. “I am sure I may confide in you, Cornelia,” she
continued. “There was, I believe, some friction between
my husband and his partner, old Mr. Erwin, about-
about Algernon's traveling so much. He has developed a
love for collecting, I believe, though he tells me little about
it. He bought that last shipment of rugs. You remember
the time they had their exhibition some years ago?
That Gurdez he prizes so highly. So highly, he will not
think of selling it. Nor show it to anyone for that mat-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
II
ter.” Her eyes looked off across the fields of purpling blue
grass waving like slow, indolent sea waves reluctant to
break upon the strand.
“Yes,” she continued, “it must have been about the
voyage and his continued absence from the business,"
she ended vaguely.
“But what,” Miss Cornelia pressed (she liked to under-
stand things and since her neighbor had heralded her
story with this expression of confidence surely she would
not think her prying). “But what has that to do with
your guest?”
The question brought Mrs. Appledore's eyes from the
waves of blue grass.
“Much, as it happens. That is why I am about so
early. My husband will arrive with the gentleman
presently and he has asked for an early breakfast. It
seems they must plunge at once into business. I must pre-
pare the parlors with these flowers for their reception."
“Gentleman?” Miss Cornelia, interested to the point
of a direct question, echoed. Then: “Some friend of
your daughter's?”
“No. Oh, no," and again there was the fancied shaking
of her neighbor's voice. “No, the girls have never seen
him. He that is, his name is Mr. Herbert Eltinge. I
understand he was graduated a year ago from a medical
college. The most brilliant of their students, I am told.
But he was dreadfully poor and became discouraged and
has sought to enter business. Algernon chanced to meet
him and has offered him a place in the firm. It seems he


12
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
was greatly impressed by the young man's personality
and has made him this offer. And you see, in a way,
if he looks after Algernon's affairs it will leave more
time, freer from Mr. Erwin's displeasure, to make
these voyages, collecting.”
That was all Miss Cornelia Hunter got out of her
friend, standing tall and slim and beautiful, her hands
nervously picking at the top of the hedge. Afterwards
she was to remember that morning when her neighbor
gathered up her flowers and disappeared over the lawn
to be swallowed up in the Gothic portals of Appledore
Towers.
She had watched her in well-bred surprise and then
with less interest it must be admitted in her own flowers,
more in her neighbor's approaching guest, she had re-
turned to her own house.
"Perhaps she is unhappy at the idea of a perpetual
guest. Or perhaps she knows it will give Mr. Appledore
an excuse to be longer away. I wonder why he didn't take
her with him on the last voyage,” she ruminated. Once
inside the dim coolness of her own great parlors, she
moved silently over the India matting filling one vase
after another that the room might breathe of her garden
through the day.
But that morning with its reluctant knowledge of the
coming of Mr. Herbert Eltinge who was to make his
home at Appledore Towers, that Mr. Algernon Apple-
dore might be “freer from his senior partner's dis-
pleasure,” was in reality only a beginning.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 13
For we are concerned more with that similar morning
two years later when Miss Cornelia Hunter leaned her
white arms in their gray lawn ruffles upon her window,
gazing at the freshness of the morning and barely con-
scious of the grim towers of Appledore glowering at her
between the glossing tulip leaves, on June 24, 1890.


Chapter II
Now the movements of Miss Cornelia Hunter should be
carefully recorded that morning. Nature lay, rubbing her
eyes, so to speak, as though reluctant to awake for the
torrid sweltering of the coming day. Mingled with the
stillness came a breath of air, already hot with the sun,
upon her cheek; an apple branch stirred, and the still
field of blue grass stretching away, like a purple sea,
moved restlessly. It was as though some sleeper had
turned beneath his quilt, roused by the dawn, still re-
luctant to shake off sleep.
That was before the days of rural free delivery in the
county—it had been talked of, but like many improve-
ments had lingered, awaiting its own time for an appear-
ance. While Miss Hunter's gray lawn skirts were trailing
down the stair that morning, in quest of her coffee and
the flowers for her parlor, it occurred to her that she had a
letter she wished to reach the morning mail and as the
day would be insufferably hot, it would be unpleasant to
drive into town or send one of the servants. Therefore
it was not unnatural that she should, while the day was
dim and cool, take from the hall table a letter written to
some distant relation, and after consuming her coffee,
walk, with a slow indolence which characterized the
14


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 15
letter in hand with Virginija It was the
movements of ladies of her day, down the wide length
of gravel driveway, five hundred yards to her gate. There,
letter in hand, she leaned against one of the square brick
posts covered with Virginia creeper and idly glanced up
the road for a passing vehicle. It was the custom for the
country farmers to drive early into town with their pro-
duce, and as this lady knew most of them it would be an
easy matter to ask the small favor of posting her letter.
Much has been written regarding Luck or Chance or
Circumstance, even Destiny, as they are sometimes called,
concerning the movements of persons who find them-
selves suddenly and violently involved in disaster, and
yet not so often does one read of that Destiny which
governs their movements at the moment before these
things occur. Behold, then, Miss Cornelia Hunter, a lady
past forty, rich as fortune was counted in her day, of
sunny if determined disposition, her church, her charity,
and her friends her major interests, calmly and with
dignity, a letter of no consequence discussing her journey
to avoid the breathless heat of Kentucky in her hand,
leaning against her gate post awaiting the chance passing
of some neighbor.
That walk, in the early morning, the sun slanting
through the maples which lined her driveway, was to be
the most eventful of her life. Certainly had this lady
known, while she idly examined the toe of her slipper
flecked with dew peeping from the swirl of white ruffled
petticoats, into whose hand her letter would be placed,
she would not have stood there so calmly or prospected


:
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
16
idly as to whether her June lilies could have opened in
the night.
So it was of the bursting June lilies which might fill
her parlors with their heavy odor of death, and those tiny
spots upon her slipper with which she was concerning
herself, and not the gentleman whose advent was rapidly
approaching
The sudden, unexpected sound of wheels upon the drive-
way next her own caused this lady to tighten her grasp
of her letter and gathering the gray lawn skirts in one
hand, advance into the dust of the road. The sun struck
directly on her face and lifting the letter, she shaded her
eyes. It was then perhaps half-past six. While she stood
there, her skirts held from the road, a horse and phaeton
emerged from between the square stone portals of her
neighbor's driveway, and turning sharply into the road,
started toward the town. The distance was not great
and immediately Miss Hunter recognized Mr. Herbert
Eltinge seated in the phaeton. Since that morning two
years before when her neighbor had told her, breathlessly,
she remembered, of his coming, Miss Hunter had seen
little of this gentleman. From all accounts he had proved
himself an addition to her neighbor's family rather than
an incumbrance.
But there was one thing which vaguely perplexed her.
And watching the rapid approach of the phaeton it oc-
curred to her again. While from time to time she talked
with her neighbor in the early morning or toward
twilight, walking in her grounds, she had not been asked


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
17
to either the rather late supper to which her neighbors
were accustomed, or the midday dinner. Perhaps Miss
Hunter had speculated upon this, wondered in her high-
bred way, if the gentleman, Mr. Herbert Eltinge, were
not quite of their caste and therefore his being omnipresent
at the family table had caused her neighbor some em-
barrassment. Certainly during the past two years the
family next door had lived much to themselves, and
it must be hinted that perhaps Miss Cornelia Hunter in
her morning look across her garden wondered if the
stranger's arrival had not, in a way, heralded a deeper
friction than that hinted at by Mrs. Appledore the
morning of his arrival. If there were some gathering un-
happiness between her neighbor and her husband that
might account for their living so much to themselves.
As the phaeton came up to where she stood Miss
Hunter waved her letter, at the same time motioning the
driver to stop.
Mr. Herbert Eltinge was an attractive young man, of
about twenty-eight, and to-day was carefully dressed,
his hat slightly over his eyes and a gray linen lap-robe
across his knees. He was of medium stature, with wide,
thoughtful eyes, which this morning when Miss Hunter
signaled him to stop were heavily circled with dark shad-
ows. And it is just possible, a few minutes afterward while
she was returning to her house, the lady of gray lawn
skirts and leg o' mutton sleeves knew that fright looked
from their depths. Certainly the suddenness with which
he drew in his horse made her wince. And certain it is


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 19
“I am quite well, thank you. Mr. Appledore returned
again last night. I have been very busy during his
absence.”
Then Miss Hunter remembered her neighbor had been
absent for some months, but for just how long she could
not recall. “That is why I am off so early. He is greatly
tired from his journey and I am to bring out the books
from the firm and go over them with him to-day. I think,
that is, it is just possible Mr. Appledore will not remain
at home very long.”
Now whether Mr. Herbert Eltinge regretted this bit of
information during the remainder of his drive into town
is a fact of which Miss Hunter was never fully convinced.
But in the light of after events she assured herself that
the young man of the white face and frightened eyes
spoke in good faith.
At any rate, when he had driven away she stood watch-
ing the faint cloud of dust up the still, damp road until
he had disappeared.


Chapter III
THERE was, in that early dawn, breaking 'clear and hot
over the blue grass region of Kentucky, a sense of impend-
ing disaster. Nor is this feeling set apart for the chronolo-
gist of mystery. A whole family have been known to sense
it. A child, with death hanging over the house, has been
known to stop its play, to slink into a corner, complaining
that it “was sick.” Sailors have known it in the dazzling
calm of the tropical seas before impending hurricane.
Mountain folk have left their work on a day in swift
coming spring to sit moodily above a smouldering wood
fire before the avalanche descended.
It was something of this which followed Miss Hunter
in her slow walk to the house, and afterwards through the
gathering of those lilies of death, and later while
she was placing them about her parlors where the
furniture was cased in brown linen for the summer and
the fresh India matting (purchased from the town's
most prosperous firm of Appledore & Erwin) was dead-
ening her footsteps along the floor.
The hot clear blue of that morning seemed to cloud
before her. Her breakfast was left untasted, and more
than once as the suffocating day dragged forward she
was glad of her decision not to drive into town through
20


22 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Stretched upon a sofa in her parlor all that torrid
afternoon, the heat pressing through closed blinds, Miss
Cornelia Hunter thought idly of this. She had a slight
headache and there was this feeling of depression.
"I do not go out very much myself,” she thought
once and toward four o'clock she ascended to her cham-
ber and changing her gray lawn for a dotted muslin
wrapper, lay upon her bed and slept.
When twilight broke, dewy and still after the fierce
heat of that day, she rose and languidly dressing herself,
descended to the hall, where after a little meditation she
walked slowly across her yard and entered the garden.
The air hung heavy and still from the long day and a
mist of dust lay over the stone wall bordering the turn-
pike. On the eastern horizon the serious round face of
the summer moon was just making its appearance. A
summer-house stood in a corner of the garden and this
was her destination.
There was a sense of peace in the approach of the eve-
ning. Cool, and idling over the grass borders, Miss Hunter
stopped now and then to turn the drooping face of a de-
jected flower upward. Finally she reached her summer-
house, built of rustic logs in that corner of the garden next
her neighbors. There was a half hour before her supper
would be ready and besides her servants knew where to
find her, so succumbing to the languor, the lingering unrest
of that day, she lay down in her hammock looking out
across the dusky garden. She had, perhaps, lain there
for fifteen minutes when there came over her the feeling


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER - 23
that she was not alone. Immediately beyond the lattice
wall of the summer-house, thick with vines, pressed the
hedge separating her garden from that of her neighbor.
And it was from behind this hedge that the assurance of
a companion came.
No voice, no movement, betrayed this sense of a
presence. It had come as silently as the big globe of the
summer moon peeping with surprised features through
the arch of the summer-house door. For some time she
lay listening. The yard, the garden were silent. From the
road there came the faint clatter of hoofs, thick and drag-
ging, and now and then the dismal lowing of a calf. A
herd of cattle were being driven along the turnpike for
the morrow's sale.
Then, from the direction of Appledore Towers came the
sound of approaching feet. Not running, yet hurried and
certainly with a purpose. Miss Hunter, lying still in the
meshes of her hammock, was certain that their purpose
was to join someone; the companion whose presence she
had so strongly felt behind the thickly matted wall.
The steps, falling faint and hurried over the turf, came
quite close to where she lay. There was a rustle from the
hedge and she recalled that Mrs. Appledore had had a
rustic seat placed there as the spot was shaded from the
afternoon sun. After the footsteps ceased she could
even hear deep breathing as though the walker had hur-
ried unduly, or, as she pondered afterward, may have
carried something heavy.
And at last a voice, broken, low, imploring. A voice so


24.
TH AT GAY NINETIES MURDER
disguised by terror that at first she could not distinguish
its words. But immediately, though she had not heard it
for many months, she recognized it as belonging to Mr.
Algernon Appledore.
“It has come?” Impatient. Demanding.
“Yes,” the other replied.
"Is it too dark to read?” Mr. Appledore asked.
"No." And a movement as though room was made for
another on the seat. Not until the first syllables of the
other voice came to her through the hedges did Miss
Hunter recognize the second. It was the same voice,
courteous and polite, the voice of the frightened eyes,
which that morning had belonged to Mr. Herbert Eltinge
when he received her letter.
The reading came with difficulty in the deepening
twilight, and at first so hurried, so stumbling in haste as
to be unintelligible. Perhaps, though, the other close by
had heard. For certainly there was no sound of interrupt-
ing, and an odd thought came to this Victorian lady,
tense and listening. While occasionally she caught a
phrase, the reading seemed in a language she did not
know. A profoundness in the phraseology she did not
understand. It was certainly not French or German, for
Miss Hunter knew these. Next she recalled Mr. Apple-
dore's foreign training and subsequent world-wide travel.
“Scrupulous and systematic”-something then, and
the voice lowered itself in hurried reading.
Once it was broken off by the other's demanding:
“When did this come out?" and the reply:


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 25
“Last week. Only arrived to-day.”
Then a hurried, inarticulate:
“Go on.”
“One is very apt to be deceived in estimating the value
of a drug " Perhaps the voice of the owner of Apple-
dore Towers bade him read more slowly, or perhaps with
more caution, for certainly Miss Cornelia, lying stretched
in her hammock, the big moon more golden as the night
drew on, could understand but little. Then as the dark-
ness made reading more difficult and the words of neces-
sity slower and more clear, such phrases as “an un-
pleasant sequel” and “accompanied by” then “due to the
drug.”
When the voice had finished there came the deep breath
of one who has read long and hurriedly under difficulties.
Once, indeed, a broken sound came through the darkling
night. The sound unmistakably of a strong man's sobs,
broken and despairing from between clenched hands.
Presently Miss Hunter heard two pair of footsteps
moving, slowly, very slowly toward the house. Finding
less comfort in her repose in the summer-house than that
which the day had brought, Miss Hunter recrossed the
garden and reëntered her house.
It was just after her supper, when this lady had gone
onto her porch and seated herself, languidly waving a
palm-leaf fan, and had bidden her maid bring a tall
pîtcher of barley water and ice, that she heard the sound
of flying feet. Sitting tense and erect, she waited. The
footsteps from across her garden and next the crash of


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
at Applede sake, Miss u "You are
brush and a body flung violently through the hedge be-
longing to the Appledores. Then the feet nearer, across
her roses, past the borders, and the snap as the gate latch
broke against a heavy weight.
A shadow fled across the lawn, vanishing and reappear-
ing in the patches of white moonlight, and a figure dashed
up the steps. The lady rose and waited.
“Miss Hunter!" it gasped. “You are wanted over
there! For God's sake, Miss Hunter! Murder has been
done at Appledore Towers!”
The voice was that of young Herbert Eltinge, though
the porch was too dark to see his face. In an instant he
was gone, his fleeing figure darting like a black ghost
before her through her garden to her neighbor's.
Not waiting to call a servant, this lady gathered up
her flowing skirts and fled after him. The moonlight
dappled her as she passed under the trees. A high comb
fell from her hair and she felt the coil untwisting.
Odd thoughts come to a serene, complaisant mind
at such times. "He has been a doctor,” panted Miss
Hunter as she ran. “It is indeed a spectacle awaiting me
at Appledore Towers."


Chapter IV
WHILE she fled, for a lady was not wont to "run,” Miss
Hunter's mind was filled with equally fleeting fancies.
She was not a curious woman-her very breeding, her life,
had removed her from the vulgarity of such a thing, yet
she was of that caste, carefully suppressed by early train-
ing, which might have developed a mind of considerable
importance in medicine or the law had she lived in an-
other day. The Appledores, despite their retiring reticence
during those past few years, were her nearest neighbors
and Mrs. Constance Appledore long her dearest friend.
The thought of her domestic unhappiness, and the effort
incurred in keeping this from her daughters, had given
Miss Hunter, tall and sedate beneath the heavily carved
rosewood of her bed, more than one wakeful night.
Well, here was something which demanded her pres-
ence at Appledore Towers—a something which would
drive away the mists which had gathered so unwillingly
between Constance Appledore and herself.
As she flung aside the gate from which the lock was
snapped, the open space of her garden lay before her
bathed in the silver light. Already the figure of that
other with his message of death had disappeared. His
words had struck a sudden chill about Miss Hunter's
27


28
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
heart, had sent a choking into her throat which strangled
her. Across the borders, heedless of her roses, she fled, a
tall gray ghost of the night. In the farther hedge was the
torn path of the messenger and Miss Hunter followed in
his train.
Breaking her way through the stiff clinging twigs of
privet she fled on across the velvet of her neighbor's yard.
From her contact with the hedge and her heedlessness
of the clutching roses, the puffed sleeve of her evening
dress hung torn from her shoulder. Her hair hung in a
twisted rope and one hand was bleeding. So indeed it was
a disheveled counterpart of the Victorian lady who had
sat a moment before upon the cool length of porch which
presented itself before the high doorway of Appledore
Towers.
Pausing one breathless moment, her foot upon the
stone step, the lady looked before her. The house was high
and grim, a double length of rooms on either side of the
oak-paneled hall. One half of the Gothic door was open
and from a hanging lamp of wrought iron a yellow light
streamed out into the yard. In that moment Miss Hunter
clung to a stone lion bearing the escutcheon of Apple-
dore upon a gray shield, and caught her breath. Down the
length of the hall to the square stairway extending to the
second and third floors the house lay still as death. The
utter peace of the night seemed to clutch at her, hold her
back in the heavy warmth of its embrace from that
which lay down the shining length of hall, up the carved
oak stairway, past a door.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 29
Then catching at her ragged trailing skirts, Miss
Hunter went up the stone steps, crossed the flagging, dim
and cool, and entered the yellow-lighted hall. And here, it
should be carefully recorded-it had much bearing upon
that which she told the investigators an hour later-she
waited. No sound had come to her-no voice, yet some-
thing came, and as unexplainably as the feeling which had
crept over her that morning, lingered through the day up
until she entered the summer-house barely an hour before
and heard the voices of her neighbors.
Without knowing, this lady, panting for breath and
looking steadfastly about for courage to mount the stairs
to the stillness stretching above, drew from her belt a fine
linen handkerchief and pressed it to her face. There was
a choking in her throat, next the consciousness of some
acrid odor, to which she was vaguely accustomed, yet
not quite accustomed, for it was mingled with another
pungent and bitter, like that men brought with them from
a quail shoot. It was the smell of burnt powder.
At the foot of the stairs Miss Hunter looked up to
where the well of the stairway stretched away into the
darkness of the third floor. In the hall of the second floor
a light was burning. An unreasoning terror welled up
inside her at the stillness of it all. Back in her mind, as
she fled through the night across her roses, there had
been a confused picture of what she would find at Apple-
dore Towers. Doors opened and closed, running feet,
voices calling breathless in terror to one another.
The stillness was intolerable. It may have been this


30
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
terror that gripped her clinging there to the newel post,
it may have been the association of the burnt powder
mingled with that other odor, yet more likely still it was
the message Mr. Herbert Eltinge had brought-now in
this stillness seeming so long ago. At any rate, her nerve
force snapped and she cried aloud, and at no answering
voice she screamed—“Constance!" Only the echo of her
own voice came floating back from above. Again she
called louder: “Constance! It is I, Cornelia!”
At last, interminably, in answer came the sound of
feet on the heavy carpet of the upper hall, and as Miss
Hunter stumbled upward, her feet catching and clinging
in her torn skirts, the figure of Mrs. Appledore appeared
at the head of the stairs. Silhouetted against the light
behind her, she was reeling and staggering like a drunken
woman. Mrs. Appledore started forward, her friend meet-
ing her halfway in the shadow.
“Constance!” Miss Cornelia breathed, and catching
the other's hand in hers she pressed it to her bosom.
“Constance, I am here with you. Do not be afraid.
What, oh, what has happened?"
The other strained away from her, drawing back her
hand and pressing it to the heavy coil of hair worn so low
across her forehead.
“There, up there!” she gasped, pointing up the stairs.
“Elizabeth. In her own room. Call-call and with-
out finishing the words she sped past down the length of
stairs.
Miss Hunter sprang up the remaining steps and stand-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
31
ing in the upper hall looked about her. The same odor,
acrid sharp and clean, was in the air, heavier even than in
the hall below. From down the steps came the voice of
her neighbor in the back part of the house, a door flung
open, another, and her voice trailing away in the recesses
of the house “Sarah! Annie! William!” These were her
servants. The sound of another door slamming, and the
silence again.
Miss Hunter recalled in that moment of silence closing
over her that she had not entered this hall for over three
years. It was the necessity of remembering which was
Elizabeth's room that brought it back to her. That first
door to the right, the one nearest the staircase, that was
Elizabeth's room. Beyond was Lillian's chamber. Across
the hall on the left were the two occupied by Mr. and
Mrs. Appledore. The first was their sitting room. Her
eyes turned to the door which she knew she must enter,
and it was standing open. Across the red velvet carpet of
the hall a band of yellow light stretched out, staining it a
golden brown. So after a moment of memory, of terror
and of hesitation, Miss Hunter crossed the carpet and
stood with one hand on either side of the doorway.
The room was paneled halfway to the ceiling. Heavy
red velvet curtains, encased in linen for the summer,
looped themselves before the windows, caught back with
golden grapes, and tumbled upon the polished floor.
Between the windows stood the carved oak bed, its filmy,
faintly scented sheets turned back for the night, and it
was upon this bed that Miss Hunter's eyes rested. The


32
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
vast cool sheet stretched before her and clearly it had not
as yet been occupied. Then she turned her face to the
farther side of the room.
Before a pier-glass, its heavy gold frame stretching
to the ceiling and surmounted by gilt brackets holding
candles burning like winking eyes in the perfect stillness
of the room, lay the body of a girl, Elizabeth. From the
light of the candles Miss Hunter saw her slim white form
stretched face upward on the velvet of the carpet. She
was dressed in a simple frock of white muslin, a blue silk
sash wound under her arms and fastened at the side. In
one hand she held a revolver, its handle slipping from her
limp grasp, and in the other a something which at first
Miss Hunter could not determine. From her right temple
slow red drops were creeping down upon the carpet.
Dropping on her knees beside the figure, she bent over
and called her name. At first loudly, then seeing the
truth of that which lay before her, softly.
“Elizabeth, Elizabeth!”
There was in the white face before her on the red velvet
a heretofore unnoticed resemblance to the child's own
mother. The wide lips-pale now, the heavily curled
lashes of the eyes, now closed, the straight line of the
nose, clear cut, high-bred, patrician. The forehead-but
it was at the forehead Miss Hunter looked, and looking,
shuddered and looked away. The heavy dark hair, worn
low like her mother's and contrary to the prevailing
fashion, had fallen back. Across the forehead stretched a
burn-a seared white mark across the flesh stretching


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 33
from temple to temple. Upon the lips, half parted as
though in sleep, there was a smaller burn. Then it was on
seeing this that Miss Hunter looked at the other hand,
the left; looked and raised it from the floor and looked
again. As she did so something slipped from its loosening
clasp and fell softly upon the deep red carpet with no
sound. It was a bottle, a bottle of brown glass and by its
side a ground-glass stopper. Lifting it, Miss Hunter was
conscious of the heavy acrid scent, a sticky tingling in
her own white fingers. The bottle had had a label which
was partially effaced, as though someone with scissors
or knife had scraped across the label.
Perhaps Miss Hunter knelt there for some seconds ad-
justing herself to the realization of death. At any rate,
investigation, a short time afterward, showed that she
had, perhaps mechanically, folded her fine linen hand-
kerchief and pressed it against the temple of the child
on the carpet-realizing that presently her mother must
return, realizing, too, that she need not witness the trickle
of darker red mingling with that of the carpet.


Chapter V
With the pressing into place of that fine handker-
chief Miss Hunter walked, shaken and trembling, to the
door leading to the upper hall. Her head was whirling
and her hands were ice. There came an uncontrollable
desire to fly, to rush from the house, down the velvet
stairs, out through the hot pressing night, back across
her roses and safe within her own front door. But this
was only for a moment, for then came finer thought-
thoughts in agony for her friend who had fled away
downstairs, whose voice she still heard floating up from
the darkness calling, calling.
The spring before Mary Anderson (“Their Mary,”
for Kentucky claimed her) had played Othello and the
Emelia had rushed, even as Mrs. Appledore, about a
darkened castle crying, “Murder, Murder!" It was like
that to Miss Hunter, while she stood in the door, her
back to the thin white figure on the floor.
She was recalled from this tumult of crashing thought
by a sharp burning in her fingers and holding them
before her saw that the fluid from the bottle she had
lifted from the dead girl's hand had left two white sears
stretching across her hand. The pain was intense as she
held them to the light. Yet before she could find voice to
34


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 35
call, before even she could clear her mind for coherent
thought, a door down the hall, that of the dead girl's
sister Lillian, flung open and there stood half in light,
half in shadow, a figure. It was Lillian Appledore,
dressed, as befitted the night, in a thin white lawn
wrapper ruffled and falling to her feet. At the throat was
tied a wide pink ribbon falling to the floor. At sight of
Miss Hunter standing in the door with her face blanched,
her gown in tatters, Lillian Appledore recoiled.
“Lillian!” Miss Hunter is known to have spoken.
Then: “Lillian! Your sister. Did you not know?"
Then following close upon these words Lillian Apple-
dore did an unexplainable thing. Coming quickly down
the hall she paused directly in front of Miss Hunter, yet
that lady having moved toward her, not far enough to
see inside the room..
“You mean- ” she gasped.
“Your sister, Elizabeth, is dead,” Miss Hunter said.
“Where is your father? That Mr. Eltinge? Send for a
doctor!"
What thoughts passed in Miss Hunter's mind while she
said this are difficult to imagine. Here from the room in
which murder or suicide had been done certainly less
than ten minutes before was the explosion of a pistol,
the falling of a body—through the house the flying feet
of Mr. Herbert Eltinge, the scream of Mrs. Appledore-
here within thirty feet of it was the elder sister emerging
from her room apparently without knowledge that it
had happened at all.


36
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Putting up a hand at the girl, who would brush past
her to that room of death, Miss Hunter held her back.
And as the other flung back her face, blanched from the
words this lady had spoken, Miss Hunter was conscious
of a thing which afterwards she swore to in a court of
justice.
Lillian Appledore's eyes were red and swollen, her
voice, as she tried to speak, so strangled from recent
sobbing that she could not articulate.
Something came over the girl, tall and swaying sud-
denly there in the yellow light, and crushing her lip be-
tween her teeth she mastered herself.
“Elizabeth,” she said with a dreadful finality, life
falling out of her voice, “is dead!”
“Yes,” replied Miss Hunter. “Where is your father-
call.” But if this lady was prepared to repeat her instruc-
tion she did not finish. Looking at her with deep tragic
eyes, her face whiter even than that of her sister lying
before the pier-glass, Lillian Appledore spoke.
“Dead? And I did not hear it-à-a shot. Miss Hunter,
she said only an hour ago that she—that she would do
that!”
Without waiting to speak again, looking past her
neighbor blocking the way, life seemed to return to her
white features. Pushing Miss Hunter aside, she started
forward. And here it was she did the thing which Miss
Hunter was not able to explain-reaching the head of the
stairs, not looking into the door where her sister lay, not
down the stairs to where her mother had gone, she fled


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 37
up the steps to the third story. The sound of her running
į feet clad in bedroom slippers came faint and fainter to
the lady of torn skirts and tingling hand standing there
in the upper hall. From above somewhere on the third
story she heard hands beating against wood, the creak
of hinges, the slam of a door, and again the silence which
had met her on her entrance closed over Appledore
Towers.
A jumble of emotions clung about Miss Hunter as those
seconds, which seemed hours, passed. It was apparently
a thing of little consequence that this dead girl lay upon
the floor in the flicker of the candles.
The words of the sister chilled her heart like ice.
“She said only an hour ago that she would do it.” Was
that what Lillian Appledore had said when she passed her
sister's door not calling for help, not stopping to lift that
drooping head-but upward—where?
In those seconds, ten possibly, Miss Hunter stood
rooted to the floor. From far away, below her in the yard,
she heard voices and then nearer upon the back porch;
one of them screamed, a negro's. A door opened and
from downstairs a confusion of sound. Negroes talking
and crying and running, while before them, heedless of
their hysteria, came the lady of the house.
While these people ascended the stairs, their mistress
in the lead, the negroes trying to force each other for-
ward, from the hall above, the dark hall of the third
story, came the sound of people in terrible haste. And
mingled with their confusion, something heavy, some-


38
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
thing solid was dragged scraping along an uncarpeted
floor.
It was only a moment and then down the steps, his
face ashen, came Mr. Algernon Appledore followed by
his daughter Lillian. As they reached the foot of the stairs
they were met by Mrs. Appledore, closely followed by the
servants. The heat, prolonged and suffocating, of that
day had had its effect upon the servants of Appledore
Towers, and it was a strange, half-clad, ashen-faced group
of people who faced Miss Hunter, no less strange in her
torn gown and hanging hair.
This lady was the first to enter the room. With in-
stinctive pity and protection, characteristic of her, Miss
Hunter went close to her friend Mrs. Appledore. There
was a deathly silence as they stood there, the three negro
women from their cabins at the back of the house, the
old family butler, white-haired, his eyes bulging, and Mr.
Algernon Appledore, his face gray.
“When- ” that gentleman is recorded as saying, but
the stillness of the room smothered his voice. They were
stricken dumb, these people. A candle sputtered and one
of the negro women, a cry in her throat, sank upon the
floor, covering her face with shaking black hands. Mr.
Appledore dropped upon the rug at the side of his
daughter and lifted her head, his wife by him, seemingly
turned to ice.
It was while the eyes of these two met across the slim
form of their youngest daughter that there came a crash.
A crash muffled far away, and save for the stillness of the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 39
house, one which might have passed unnoticed. But
assuredly not from the top of the house or even the lower
floor—but Miss Hunter, watching the night, thought
afterwards, from the cellar, deep down within the house,
following immediately upon the sound an opening door
on the third floor and swift feet upon the stair descending
two, three even, at a time.
Looking up, Miss Hunter saw the same shadow which
had crossed her lawn a few minutes before tearing down
the stairs, that of Mr. Herbert Eltinge. Not until later,
later that night of suffocating heat, of dim, blinking stars,
of death lying in her neighbor's house while Miss Hunter
watched, was she able clearly and in their own se-
quence to set down these things in her mind:
Mrs. Appledore on the stairs going to call her servants.
Lillian Appledore, her eyes swollen and her voice
strangled with sobbing, passing the door through which
her sister lay, speeding up the stairs to call her father.
The scrape of something heavy dragged across the floor
of the upper hall. The return of the family and the
servants, and lastly, in that dead hush of the realization
of death, the crash from the cellar. And lastly Mr.
Herbert Eltinge bounding down the stairs, also passing
the room of death without a backward look, once more
on his way to town.
Of these minutes while they waited Miss Hunter has
spoken clearly; of the frantic father snatching a pillow
from the bed and placing it beneath his daughter's head;
of Mrs. Appledore crouching white-faced, looking, look-


40
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
ing into her daughter's face; of the poor futile attempts
to pass a stimulant between the stiffening lips; and, lastly,
the hopeless cry with which the mother flung herself
face downward upon the floor, her hand pressing part of
her daughter's limp gown against her face.
Then had come the galloping sound of horses' hoofs
when Mr. Eltinge passed under the window riding in
terrible haste to the town, the minutes of waiting until
help should arrive help which she knew would be no
help.
Once Mr. Appledore would have lifted his daughter
and placed her upon the bed, but Miss Hunter, again with
that authority which characterized her life, said steadily:
"Perhaps—it is best to let her remain there until -
they arrive."
And once the negroes were bidden to leave the room to
get into more suitable clothing, and once Lillian Appledore
tried to induce her mother to sit in a chair near the door.
“Will he bring a doctor?” Miss Hunter asked.
The poor father shook his head, and then:
“Too late," came from behind his shaking fingers.
In the terror of those moments the telephone, too re-
cently installed to be as yet a part of life, and clinging
clumsily to the wall halfway up the staircase, had been
forgotten.


Chapter VI
It was after the half-clad negroes had gone shuffling
down the stairway of Appledore Towers and their foot-
steps and sobs died away in the distance, that Mr. Alger-
non Appledore was able to lift his wife from the floor and
with his daughter's help seat her in the armchair facing
her daughter's body.
It was ghastly in the extreme, this shock to these Vic-
torian ladies—a day when women were “saved" from
everything, from shock, from authority, saved even
from management of their own affairs. Downstairs in the
lower hall the great carved clock ticked the minutes
solemnly away, and so still was the little circle in the
flicker of the candles on that slim white figure on the
floor that these soft ticks came wavering up the stairs
like human breathing.
Once Mr. Appledore leaned over and pressed his wife's
hand in his, and there being no sign of recognition or re-
turn, laid it gently in her lap. And once Miss Hunter
slowly twisted her hair in place and this accomplished,
went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of
water, offering it to her stricken neighbor. When it was
refused she placed it upon the mantelpiece and resumed
her seat, waiting
41


42
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
They had sat thus for possibly five minutes when
without warning a cry broke from the lips of Mrs. Apple-
dore and dropping her head between her hands, she burst
into wild and uncontrollable sobbing. So fierce was this
storm, so terrible, breaking in upon the solemn death
before them, that Miss Hunter sprang to her feet and
tried to console her neighbor, only to have her hands vio-
lently pushed away.
For a few moments she stood in helpless silence, but
as the weeping increased to hysteria, the voice of the
stricken woman rising and falling in sharp agony, racking
and terrifying, she spoke to Mr. Appledore.
“You and Lillian help her to her own room. She must
not sit here any longer. It has been too much for her. I will
stay here until they arrive."
So urged gently, her husband half carrying her, Mrs.
Appledore, her body strangled and shaken with her grief,
was helped across the hall, her daughter on one side, her
husband on the other. The door leading to her bedroom
opened and closed and all was silent.
To Miss Cornelia Hunter, left standing in the center of
the dimly lit room-lighted, in fact, only by the candles
flanking the gilt mirror on the wall, this suddenly had a sig-
nificance. And for some moments that lady stood straining
every nerve and listening. The sound of those terrible sobs,
sobs of a mind torn deeply in body and soul, had ceased,
and she recalled the heavy doors, the solid masonry of the
walls. Was it not then quite possible that Lillian, only a
few short minutes before, face downward upon her bed


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 43
and sobbing, had not heard the sound of the pistol shot
or the soft crumpling of her sister's body upon the
floor? Heavy sobbing when the stricken one may try to
hide the sound of grief, may choke and deafen the stricken
one. It might have been. But why then if she had not
heard it had she stood swaying and white in the upper
hall uttering those words of finality—that statement she
had flung at Miss Cornelia that her sister had said an
hour before that she would do it? Surely if such were the
dead girl's words, she had left no stone unturned. The
bottle of acid-the pistol wound in her temple. Now
despite the training of her generation, Miss Hunter had
not been above a certain interest in such things as she
had read of them in the papers. A great expert in such
happenings, she realized, had once written that in such
matters a first impression is apt to be the best. But what
could there be “best” about this thing that had happened
to blast the lives of those at Appledore Towers? Behind
the conviction that Miss Lillian Appledore might have
lain behind the thick masonry of her bedroom walls
withour hearing that shot which took her sister's life,
there crept up a vague feeling of comfort. For, during
those moments while Miss Hunter had fled through her
garden, she had had a distinct first impression, conviction
even, that murder had been done in the house of her
neighbor. “Murder.” That was the word the voice had
spoken to her in the darkness. The same voice which,
that morning, had courteously told her he would post
her letter.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Well, she knew little of this Mr. Herbert Eltinge. He
was certainly a student, witness the light Miss Hunter
from time to time saw burning in his window, which she
knew to be in the sweep of smaller rooms across the
third floor of the house. The servants slept in cabins at
the back, and besides the family's rooms there was only
one guest chamber on the second floor.
Then she thought of the reasonableness of a first im-
pression. If she herself had had such an impression why
had not Mr. Herbert Eltinge? Why had he said the
daughter of Algernon Appledore had been murdered?
In Miss Hunter's day suicide was far less frequent
than to-day. A shattered life, disgrace, financial or moral,
might bring about such an act, but rarely in Miss
Hunter's walk of life.
Drawing in her breath she closed her eyes and resting
her forehead upon her folded hands she said a prayer
for those three across the hall: the father returned from
his long journey to such a welcome, the stricken mother,
the sister who was now so dreadfully alone.
Hers was a sober, godly life and Miss Hunter had always
turned to her Maker in times of stress. And so it was again
with a faint comfort, an assurance in her heart, that she
lifted her head and opened her eyes. The room was very
still. She let her eyes rest on that long white figure before
the glass and a tenderness came into her face at the utter
repose of the thin white profile turned upward, the limp
helpless hands straying out across the crimson of the rug.
“Poor child! Poor child!” she murmured, and putting


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 45
up her own hand she felt her cheek was wet. Instinctively
she felt for a handkerchief and remembering where it
was, she shuddered.
Drawing her eyes from the other's face, Miss Hunter
looked about the room. She was vastly shaken and she
knew there was before them all an ordeal in which she
must stand very close with these friends and save them
what she could. She, if she was to help, must not lose her
self-control, and perhaps it was best not to look again at
the face of the child, so white, so little, and so utterly at
peace.
While her eyes strayed about the room searching for
something upon which to fasten themselves for a brief
respite, she saw upon the table the work basket of the
dead girl. Young ladies still occupied their time with em-
broidery, then and Miss Hunter noticed that while the
table with its unlit lamp, its books, its tiny articles of
virtu, was in bleak order, the basket was disarranged.
Not the sewing itself, a table cover of linen worked in a
Roman scroll. That, with the threaded needle stuck into
the work, lay folded in a neat square. By the side of the
basket, in which the spools of silk and skeins of zephyr
were in disorder, lay a pair of embroidery scissors—a tiny
stork, his feet the handles, his long beak the blades.
These scissors were at the edge of the table nearest her
and open. It was as though someone had searched hur-
riedly in the basket, disarranging its order and finding
the scissors used them, and flung them down. But this
thing, while her mind was seeking for an interest, was to


46 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
linger witbht of thought, she wor at her feet, ar
linger with Miss Hunter-linger until a day later when,
after a night of thought, she was to ask her question.
Before the table, on the floor at her feet, and between
the table and the dead girl, clear and distinct upon
the stretch of crimson carpet, lay four tiny white rolls of
paper. They were not far from one another and were less
than one-half inch in length. Now Miss Hunter was a
methodical lady, a faultless housekeeper, and disorder of
any kind annoyed her. It was possibly this same an-
noyance that had focused her thought upon the disar-
ranged work basket. At any rate, she leaned over from her
chair and picking up the four little white rolls of paper,
sat idly twisting them in her fingers. This action brought
with it a twinge of pain from the thin white burns upon
her hand and once more she examined them, now two
thin white puffy blisters.
Whether or not this lady, tingling with thought and
the consciousness that she was alone with death, would
have let her mind return to the work basket, one cannot
say. At all events, looking about her and seeing no scrap
basket, she slipped the little rolls of paper under the white
embroidered cuff which was pinned at the wrist of her
long-sleeved gown. And there they lay for the time being,
forgotten.
Downstairs the breathless old clock ticked past the
minutes. From outside in the yard came the muffled
voices of the servants returning, accompanied now by
others they had roused from distant cabins. Their con-
fused sound, lowered in respect to death, came floating


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 47
up from the back of the house. It must be confessed that
with relief Miss Hunter rose and went to the head of the
stairs and spoke when she heard the back door open.
“Sarah!” She was the oldest servant, once the chil-
dren's nurse and now Mrs. Appledore's maid.
The woman came waddling up the stairs followed by
the others, her face twitching, her eyes wide.
“Your mistress is ill. Go to her room and see if you
can help, and tell Mr. Appledore that soon now the
others will arrive and if he could come in here "
But what Sarah was to tell, the old negress did not
wait to hear. Her mistress needed her and as for those
others, Miss Hunter could see to them.


Chapter VII
APPARENTLY that same sense of depression which had
followed Miss Hunter up her driveway that morning
had hung also over Appledore Towers.
Later, when the sound of wheels came to her from the
roadway and the house began to fill with people, the
family spoke of it.
The first arrival was the Chief of Police, Captain
Henry Regan. He had driven at a gallop with Mr. Her-
bert Eltinge. The Appledore stables were noted for their
blood and speed, so barely twenty minutes elapsed be-
tween the time this gentleman was confronted with the
fact and his arrival. He had sent an officer on a bicycle
to summon Mr. Mulligan, the Coroner, and next the Dis-
trict Attorney, Mr. Courtney Bryan. After a brief ex-
amination, kneeling about the limp figure on the floor,
these gentlemen turned to Miss Hunter who stood si-
lently at the farther side of the room. She had passed
through those moments of examination and they were
too painful for her to care to repeat them.
“Sit down please, Miss Hunter,” the District At-
torney said. He knew the two families, the Hunters and
the Appledores, and had often been a guest in their
house. “And will you tell what you know of this dis-
tressing affair?"


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
49
he law red his hoor cama
From the group of ashen-faced negroes jostling one
another and peering through the door came a smothered
sob. Captain Regan raised his hand and they, with in-
born fright of the law, lapsed into tense silence. “Mr.
Eltinge has told me you were notified and I would rather
hear your story first. Please be so good as to proceed.”
Miss Hunter told of her experience. It was very brief.
Brief, and with a certain tenderness and respect for the
stricken family in Mrs. Appledore's room across the
hall.
In a few short sentences she told of her sitting in the
shadow of her porch, of Mr. Eltinge's crossing her gar-
den, his blurting out the news, and her subsequent dis-
covery of the body, alone, upon the bedroom floor. She
indicated the pistol, which had not been touched, ex-
plained that she had placed her own handkerchief over
the wound in the child's temple, and when she told of the
brown bottle with its glass stopper, explained that its
exact position may have been slightly altered as she had
taken it into her own hand and later replaced it in that
of the dead girl. After this she went over to the mirror
and holding her own white hand near the light of a candle
displayed the thin white blisters where two drops of the
liquid had trickled down.
When she finished the District Attorney handed the
bottle to Captain Regan. The Chief of Police wrapped it
in his handkerchief and after assuring himself that the
stopper was in place, slipped it into his pocket.
The Captain sniffed the air.


50 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“Carbolic acid?” he questioned. There was a mo-
ment's silence while the three gentlemen sniffed the
heavy, clean, pungent air.
"More like phenol.” This was from Mr. Mulligan the
Coroner.
“I've known of it being used before. Smells the same,
only stronger. It won't take long to determine, however,
sir.” After the bottle was in the pocket of the Chief of
Police, that gentleman dislodged the pistol from the
stiffening fingers of the girl and held it forth.
“Have you ever seen this before?” he asked Miss
Hunter.
The lady shook her head.
“Never,” she replied. “But then I am not accustomed.
to firearms. I do not even know the make.”
Mr. Bryan handed the pistol to the Coroner who in
turn examined it.
When they had finished Miss Hunter told in detail of
meeting Mrs. Appledore upon the stairs, of finding Lillian
red eyed and unconscious of her sister's death, in her
own bedroom, and even called attention to the fact that
had the doors of both rooms been closed and Miss Apple-
dore weeping it was quite possible that she might not
have heard the shot. She explained how, when told of
her sister's death, Lillian had said that an hour before
she had threatened her own life. A glance passed be-
tween the three men, listening to each word from the
lady of white face, calm dignity, and torn garments.
Now there is a barrier between the law, the law, ar-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 51
rogant and forcing, and the privacy of our lives,
a wall cold, impenetrable, and unexplainable. Perhaps,
if one is a believer in psychoanalysis, which certainly
Miss Hunter was not, it is born with our youthful
dread of a policeman. It may be laid to this that Miss
Hunter made no mention of the disarrangement of the
work basket, the four white rolls of paper found upon
the floor, now tucked inside the linen of her cuff. Or it is
possible that, having suspected no connection with the
death of Elizabeth Appledore, she had forgotten them.
She did, however, say that on hearing the news of her
sister's death, Lillian sped past the open door of candle-
light and death without turning her head to look inside
and upward into the darkened third story.
Also, as she confronted this wall between our privacy
and the law, Miss Hunter made no mention of Mr. Her-
bert Eltinge's early drive to the city that morning nor of
the fright she fancied lurking in his heavy eyes when she
asked that he post her letter. And certainly she made no
mention of the unrestful moments in her summer-house
and the hurried reading and subsequent sobbing of the
master of Appledore Towers.
Perhaps in this lady's reserve somewhere was a bond
between Mrs. Constance Appledore and herself. A bond
of long years of friendship and confidence and trust
which, at this time, gave her a desire first to talk with
her neighbor alone before recounting the conclusions and
fancies of that long hot summer day to the law.
After she had finished Mr. Bryan spoke:


52 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“Would you be so good, Miss Hunter, as to ask if
Mr. Appledore can leave his wife and if he will join us
here?”
While she crossed the hall and tapped upon the door,
perhaps Miss Hunter wondered why she so deliberately
hoodwinked the law. But what had she to go on? The
voices of her neighbors whispering over some book and
a man's tired eyes!
She returned presently, followed by Mr. Algernon
Appledore, and Mr. Bryan came forward and silently
pressed the other's hand.
“I am distressed to hear of this calamity,” he said, his
voice deep with sympathy. Withdrawing his hand he
placed it for a moment on the other's shoulder.
Mr. Appledore's face was ghastly. A day's growth of
beard stood sharply out from its pallor and his eyes were
deep set and with red rims around them. He nodded to
the Coroner and the Chief of Police who in turn mumbled
their words of sympathy.
Miss Hunter pointed to her chair and even steadied
the gentleman toward it.
"I will not detain you from your wife a moment
longer than is necessary,” Mr. Bryan said kindly. "If
you will be so good as to tell us what you know of this
we will get it over as soon as possible.”
Mr. Appledore's eyes had traveled past Mr. Bryan,
whose words fell unheeded. They rested on the face of the
dead girl and Miss Hunter saw a shiver run through his
body.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 53
Mr. Mulligan spoke with the instinctive kindness of the
Irish.
“And perhaps it would be easier if we went into an-
other room?"
A broken sound came from Mr. Appledore's throat.
"No. As well here as anywhere. I have so few minutes
left with her—now.”
There was a finality about the words, and Miss Hunter
glanced sharply at the face of the District Attorney.
“Just tell us the facts as quickly as you can, Apple-
dore, then you may return to your wife.”
“I arrived home yesterday," the gentleman in the
chair began. “I had been away eight months, traveling
for the firm. I am a collector, sir, and my journey took
me as far as India. I was in quest of a collection of rugs
I had heard was to be dispersed there. I purchased some
of them and went to China where I made other purchases.
I heard from my family from time to time. They were
well, and as Mr. Herbert Eltinge has taken hold of my
affairs, I saw no reason for shortening my voyage. My
wife had planned to accompany me, but my—" and
here his eyes rested again upon those closed ones of the
dead girl—“my daughter had not been well since she left
college and her mother preferred to remain with her.
But it was nothing. The girls were studious, caring little
for the usual pleasures of youth. Elizabeth had studied
too hard, that was all. So I gave the matter little thought.
"I arrived depressed and tired from my long journey.
I had missed my connections, the heat was intense, and


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 55
the family circle, and I believed him. Besides, my wife
has her own money which the girls would inherit. Even
had the firm gone bankrupt they would have been pro-
vided for. But I repeat the deficit in sales was, to me,
comparatively trivial.
"I had some supper brought me on a tray. My wife, I
understand, did not come down. At half-past seven I was
again at the books on the third floor and a half hour
later Eltinge joined me. At about half-past eight or a
quarter to nine from somewhere below came the sound, as
we thought then, of the violent slamming of a door. But
so deep were we in the accounts I gave no heed. But
it is possible that Mr. Eltinge's hearing is keener than
mine. At any rate, he rose and said he was going down-
stairs. If he had any idea that. the sound which we had
thought a slamming door was— " and here he paused,
his eyes resting on his daughter's upturned face in the
candlelight. “If he thought the sound had been a
shot,” he ended with a gasp, “he disguised his apprehen-
sion. He did not return for some time and I thought no
more of the matter. Possibly ten minutes later I heard
him running up the stairs. When he flung open the door
with his astounding fact I was too paralyzed at what
his words disclosed to move. He spoke rapidly, telling
me he had run across the garden to summon Miss
Hunter before breaking the news to my wife or myself,
and then he ran down the back stairs to summon aid.
It was when my daughter fled up the stairs telling me the


56
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
fact, a moment or two later, that I found strength to
descend. I remember back in my mind an utter
inability to comprehend what Eltinge had spoken. Be-
fore my eyes were only lines of jumbled, swimming
figures. I ran downstairs with my daughter Lillian,
meeting my wife and Miss Hunter in the hall. Miss
Hunter has doubtless told you of our hurried examina-
tion and of my wife's collapse and of our taking her
across the hall to her own room.”
There was silence while the Chief of Police came over
to Mr. Appledore who sat, the beads of perspiration
shining on his forehead.
It was a day of dignity in affliction which extended to
the officers of the law, and before he asked his question
the Captain looked across the bowed head of Mr. Apple-
dore to the District Attorney, and that gentleman
nodded.
“I am sorry to ask such a question, at such a time, sir,
but the pistol-have you ever seen it before?”
The Coroner, Mr. Mulligan, scratched a match on the
sole of his foot and lighted the oil lamp on the table
behind Mr. Appledore, its yellow light slowly filling the
room, submerging the radiance of the candles. Then he
held the pistol forth.
Mr. Appledore raised his head and sat looking at it
but he did not offer to take it into his hand.
“Yes,” he finally said. “That is my revolver.”
“Could Elizabeth have had access to it?" It was the
voice of the District Attorney.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 57
“Yes. Anyone could. I kept it more for the knowledge
that my family had its protection during my absence
than anything else. Yes, she —” and his voice broke-
“Elizabeth could have taken it. It was in my top bureau
drawer.”


60
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Mr. Bryan steadied him across the hall, the servants,
huddling like frightened sheep, giving way in terrified
silence.
“We will get it over as soon as possible. We will be as
easy as we can. Stay with your wife while we talk to
Lillian and then we would like to question Mr. Eltinge.
It is a matter of necessity.”
The words died away with the closing of the door
across the hall.
Mr. Mulligan said one word to Captain Regan and the
latter nodded his head.
“Looks like it,” that gentleman replied.
There was silence in the room for fully a minute before
the door across the hall opened again and Lillian Apple-
dore appeared, followed by Mr. Bryan.
At the doorway the girl paused as though unable to
enter. Reeling backward as the District Attorney put
his arm around her, her voice came to those three stand-
ing silent in the room. “I have not been in there. Oh,
may I not tell you in my own room?" Her voice was
pleading, terrified. With its note of entreaty, Miss Cor-
nelia Hunter went into the hall, where at sight of another
woman, the girl broke into frightened sobbing.
Miss Hunter went to her and would have taken the
stricken sister in her arms but the other drew back, the
grief dying in her throat. “No, no, Miss Hunter. I-I
must bear it. If you—if you,” and her voice faltered, “I
cannot speak if you comfort me. Oh, I am wicked. She
-we-we quarreled-not an hour before ” So plain


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
бі
was the girl's terror of the room in which her sister had
met her death that the District Attorney motioned the
servants to sit with the body and next he opened the
door of Lillian Appledore's own room.
The chamber was not unlike that of her sister, curtained
and paneled after Mr. Appledore's ideas of the English
house he had so admired.
As they stood there the do r across the hall opened
and Mr. Herbert Eltinge appeared. He walked into the
room with a certain authority and stood at Lillian Apple-
dore's side. His face was haggard and his eyes, like those
of the master of the house, were red-rimmed with sleep-
lessness.
He looked at the District Attorney.
“May I remain, sir through the questioning?”
After a moment's hesitation that gentleman nodded.
“I would have called you in a moment. Stay if you
like.”
For some reason, Mr. Herbert Eltinge, despite the
ravages upon his drawn, handsome face, looked relieved.
"I thought she would need me, sir,” he answered
quietly. And with a protective gesture, caught Lillian
Appledore's hand, pressing it a moment then letting it
fall into the folds of her flowing wrapper.
Just what Miss Hunter's thoughts were at this moment
one may imagine. For a woman's mind traveled deeper
into such things than those of the stolid men awaiting the
girl's story.
The proprietorship of the young man's action was un-
pledore's howith a protective me, sir," he


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
63
And I-perhaps my answers were unkind.” Lillian Apple-
dore paused here and seemed to have difficulty in choos-
ing her words. Before she could continue, the District
Attorney broke in upon her thought.
“Will you be good enough to tell us the nature of this
conversation with your sister? In view of what has hap-
pened it is of vital importance."
The girl caught her lower lip between her teeth and to
Miss Hunter, standing across from her, the gray face of
Mr. Herbert Eltinge grew a shade paler. Finally she shook
her head.
“It—that is a very private matter. I cannot tell it.”
As she managed to gasp this her hands gripped suddenly
in her lap.
Perhaps realizing the nerves of the family at Apple-
dore Towers, Mr. Bryan did not press his point. “Very
well, Miss Appledore, what happened after that?”.
“My sister Elizabeth stayed in my room for fully half
an hour. The sweltering day, this depression which had
hung over us all, had doubtless been too much for her.
Hers was not an even nature and since she left college
she was easily excited.”
"Are you quite sure, Miss Appledore, that it is wise
for you to withhold the entire truth as to why your sister
should have been nervous and excited when she came to
your room after supper?”
The girl winced. Once Miss Hunter thought the young
man at her side was going to speak, but at a tiny flutter-
ing movement from the girl's hands he held his peace.


64 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
aging his forst walk through the
"Something happened at supper. That may have
excited her,” she answered finally.
“It were better told, Miss Appledore.” The voice of the
District Attorney was suddenly harsh.
“Very well, then,” she continued quietly. “It-it was
nothing I said to her. But Elizabeth— and here for
the briefest moment her eyes raised themselves to the
face of Mr. Eltinge, who returned her gaze steadily. It was
as though she were begging his forgiveness. “Elizabeth
asked Mr. Eltinge if he would not walk through the
grounds with her. She has always been afraid of the
dark. Perhaps she thought it would be cooler there."
There was a moment's hush when she had finished and
the man at her side nodded his head in confirmation.
“And what was Mr. Eltinge's reply?" the District
Attorney asked.
The gentleman in question would have spoken but the
Attorney held up his hand.
“If you please, just a moment, young man; I will hear
you presently."
Again the wide eyes of the girl implored the man at
her side. And again he nodded.
“Mr. Eltinge was very polite to my sister, he was al-
ways polite. He said that he was deeply engaged with
my father on some work on the third floor and that he
begged her to excuse him.”
“Was that all?"
The girl nodded and the room was very still.
“And was this, this refusal to walk with her in the


66 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
spellbound. With a movement of supreme authority she
waved the District Attorney aside and flinging open
the door, swept across the hallway, entering the bed-
room of her mother.
When she had gone the Attorney looked at Miss Hun-
ter. "Perhaps,” that lady said in a steady voice, “it
would be well to hear what this gentleman has to say
before you question the girl further. She has already
told of her sister's threat."
It must have been a bitterly humiliating and painful
ordeal that faced young Mr. Eltinge as he stood before
the circle of inquisitors. At all events, deep red crept
slowly over his handsome, ravaged face and once he
gripped the back of a chair.
“Go on, sir, with your questions. I will answer. I have
no other course. But for God's sake do not ask her any
more. She has borne all she could.”
There was a ring of conviction in the young man's
voice that caused Miss Hunter to relax. This newcomer
was practically unknown to her and that there should
be, surely without her neighbor's knowledge, this rela-
tionship with her friends' daughters, was suddenly dis-
tasteful to her.
"It is, sir, I am sure as you suppose,” the young man
winced as he said this and dropped into the chair left
vacant by Lillian Appledore. Miss Hunter, too, sat down
across from him, her head resting on her hand, her eyes
upon his face. She seemed suddenly to have assumed
1.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 67
tas
the burdens of her neighbors and if there were to be re-
flections upon them she must fight their battles.
“What I must tell you, sir, am forced to tell you, by
what has happened in the room beyond, will show me as
an insufferable cad. But plainly I have no other course.
Mr. Appledore's story, as I am sure he has told it, of his
return from the Far East, of the slump in business, is cor-
rect. And as to the manner in which the family passed the
day, that too is true. At supper Elizabeth-you see, sir,
during the few years I have been under the roof of Mr.
Appledore I have been thrown into intimate contact
with his family and am privileged to call the young
ladies by their first names—at supper Elizabeth did ask
me to walk with her through the grounds. I refused as
Lillian has told you—but, sir,” and here he reddened
sharply, "the work I must continue with her father was
not entirely the excuse. There had sprung up an—"
and here the young man cast about for a sufficiently deli-
cate word—“there had sprung up an attachment-an
attachment which I was forced to see to recognize, sir,
and for reasons I shall presently explain, one which I
most deeply did regret. It was plain in these last few
months that Elizabeth had-had honored me with her
affection-while I- "
So plainly distressed was the young man at the situa-
tion in which he found h mself that h s voice stopped
short in his throat. And it was Miss Hunter who came
to his rescue, her voice breaking the heavy silence.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
69
The silence was broken by the Coroner approaching
the high carved chair, but when he showed the pistol
and the brown glass bottle with its torn label, the young
man grew very still.
“No,” he said finally, “I have never seen these things
before."


Chapter IX
It did not prove necessary to question the mistress of
Appledore Towers. With the crash of Mr. Herbert El-
tinge's story and after he was permitted to leave the
room the District Attorney, the Coroner, and the Chief
of Police conferred together in the presence of Miss
Hunter. The young man's story, coupled with Lillian
Appledore's account of the quarrel, was sufficient, and
there appeared no reason for questioning Mrs. Apple-
dore. Yet, before the gentlemen had determined this
fact, old Sarah appeared shaken and halting at the door
stating that her mistress would receive them in her
sitting room.
Upon entering, this room was half in light of the one
lamp burning on a center table. A folded newspaper stood
against its shade that depicted scenes of the Philadelphia
Centennial done in black against the yellow glass. In the
shadow cast by the folded paper and upon a couch lay
the lady of the house. Her daughter Lillian was holding
her mother's hand in hers, while old Sarah had taken
up a palm-leaf fan and was waving it uncertainly in the
shadow. Mr. Appledore sat at the farther side of the
room, his face in his hands, while Mr. Eltinge stood at the
foot of the couch.
70


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
71
Upon the entrance of the Attorney, Mrs. Appledore
sat up and pushing away the restraining hand of her
daughter, spoke to these messengers of the law who
had crossed her door. She was not one to recline in the
presence of a gentleman and her doing so before Mr.
Eltinge gave, to Miss Hunter, at least, a knowledge of
his intimacy in the family. Despite the dim light, Mrs.
Appledore wore the lace scarf over her hair, her face in
shadow. Mr. Bryan, who was well known to her, came
to her side and offered his hand, but not taking her som-
ber eyes from his face, apparently she did not see this
and he let it fall at his side.
“I am pained beyond all measure, Mrs. Apple-
dore ” he began.
"I only wanted you to know-that despite the horror
of the past few minutes—that—that there can be no
question as to motive-my daughter took her own life.
She she was not happy. She had said as much to me.
I had implored her to go away, but she would not hear
me. And now—now that she should have "
Now Mrs. Appledore, like her friend Miss Hunter,
came of a caste which does not easily show emotion. There
was a harshness in her voice steeling it against this, a
harshness the District Attorney understood in the dry,
shaken words of the lady who was his friend, and he felt
his eyes sting with pity. “Pray do not speak further,
Mrs. Appledore,” he counseled. "I–I am here only to
do what I can for you in this hour of your need.”
“If you wish to question me,” the lady continued, “I


72
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
am ready to speak. I owe it to my daughter Lillian who
reproaches herself beyond all reason. But I-I alone am
to blame. I should have taken her away, I have kept
too much to myself. I demanded she return from college.
She was unhappy here at home. But it was too lonely,
too dull-yes, if there are questions to ask they should
be asked of me-not of Lillian or my husband.”
If the District Attorney had questions to ask he did
not tell her so. The house was stricken with the shadow
come so swiftly upon them and plainly Mrs. Appledore
could not talk of the tragedy coherently. So after a word
of sympathy and an avowal of friendship this gentleman
and his companions in grim duty returned to the hall
where, with Miss Hunter who had taken command,
they consulted as to the morrow.
Presently Mr. Eltinge joined them, standing silently by
while there were dreadful words spoken of "arrange-
ments.”
There must be an inquest in the morning and the
Coroner would set the hour as early as it would be pos-
sible to summon a jury. Nine o'clock was decided upon.
It was further decided that, having heard the story from
the family, he believed only a few questions would be
asked.
The body of the dead girl was tenderly transferred
from the floor to her own bed, and covered with a
sheet; two of the servants were set to watch. “I will
sit here in the hall, or watch by her myself,” Miss
Hunter offered once, but Mr. Eltinge shook his head.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 73
“That will not be necessary, unless you would rather
be near Mrs. Appledore,” he said. “I had hoped she
would see a doctor but she refused. She insists on com-
ing in here a while herself. She is a woman of iron,
Miss Hunter, and I believe it is easier for her to have her
own way.”
The wisdom of the young man's counsel appealed to
Miss Hunter, and as the news of these happenings at
Appledore Towers was still confined to the servants of
the house there was little probability of neighbors or
friends arriving until early in the morning. So at eleven,
Miss Hunter, escorted by the District Attorney, returned
to her own house.
As the Coroner and Chief of Police were leaving the
stone portals of Appledore Towers a step sounded in
the ball behind them and Mr. Algernon Appledore stood
just under the hanging iron lamp, that lamp which had
first lighted Miss Hunter across the lawn when she flew,
torn and disheveled, into the house three hours before.
Mr. Appledore had recovered something of his com-
posure and when he spoke his voice was even.
“We would rather, if you please,” he said, addressing
the District Attorney, "prepare the body of my child for
her last rest ourselves. That is, I fancied you might be
thoughtful enough to speak to an undertaker regarding
arrangements. My wife has always had an especial aver-
sion to such a thing. So to-morrow I will direct that the
necessary things are done. A casket—" and his voice
broke_“I will attend to these details."


74
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Without another word he turned, leaving the four
people on the front steps.
It was not unusual, this thing of a family preparing
their dead for their final sleep, and Miss Hunter's Vic-
torian mind was faintly relieved that it should be so.
More than once had she helped in these tender last
offices—the folding of those useless hands—the placing
of rosebuds or lilies in the stiffened fingers, or lastly the
arranging of a shroud.
When the Coroner and Chief of Police had gone, wend-
ing her way through her garden, this time careful of her
roses, she spoke to the District Attorney.
“It is best to let them have their way. Constance has
always been like that. I will go over early in the morning
before people begin to arrive and see if I can help them.”
When she entered her own door she led the way back
to the dining room, and pointing to a decanter of rye
upon the sideboard, motioned Mr. Bryan to help himself.
Next she rang for a servant, telling the woman briefly
what had happened next door and giving strict instruc-
tions that none of the other servants visit the Appledore
house until the morning.
When the woman had gone away she drew her chair to
the table and leaning her head in her hands looked at the
Attorney facing her with his two fingers of whisky.
“Can you tell me,” this lady questioned, "if you have
heard of reverses in Mr. Appledore's business while he
has been away? I live so quietly here I know little of
such things.”


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 75
Her companion, after a swallow of whisky, pressed
his lips together, frowning, and shook his head.
"No," he replied, “I have not. Still old Mr. Erwin
is a close-mouthed man and it is not likely that I would.
I believe, however, the firm's finances are in fair shape.
I am a director in the City Bank where they do most of
their business, and had there been a notable deficit I
would have heard of it."
There was silence for a moment and the dim, hot room
was very still. From outside in the sleeping garden came
the sudden shrill cry of a whippoorwill. Its note, piercing
and sharp from the black and silver shadows, caused Miss
Hunter to start and catching her breath, to lay her hand
above her heart.
“This has been too much for you,” the District At-
torney said. “I wish you could be persuaded to join
me," and he smiled, indicating his glass, but the lady
shook her head.
“I suppose I am unnerved. It-oh, it is dreadful-
that events should have happened which could lead to
such a thing without my even guessing. Oh, poor Con-
stance! And poor, poor Lillian!”
There was another soft stretch of silence in the dim
room and Mr. Bryan, finishing his whisky, set his glass
before him.
“What do you know, Cornelia,” he asked presently,
“of this young Eltinge?”.
The lady shook her head.
“Very little,” she answered after a moment. “Con-


76
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
stance told me once before his arrival—this was about
two years ago—that he had been a medical student, a
brilliant student, I believe, but through poverty had
given up his career and decided to enter business. It
seems at about the same time Mr. Appledore developed
his love for travel and collecting. The young man was
employed to look after his interests in the store. That is
really all I know.”
"He's a nice enough young fellow," the District Attor-
ney said after a moment's thought. “That situation with
which he was confronted to-night was an exceedingly del-
icate one. And one which he met as a gentleman.”
“Yes,” and Miss Hunter winced, “but I cannot become
accustomed to discussing the girl's affections with a
stranger.” There was a certain high-bred scorn in her
voice, the distastefulness of her generation for such a
thing.
“Well, the harm is done, and it is apparent that Lillian
returns his affection. I wonder her mother did not sense
the truth. Perhaps she did and could do nothing about
it. Certainly she blames herself now for what has hap-
pened. I wonder she did not take the child away."
“That is a thing I have never entirely understood,"
Miss Hunter replied, her eyes looking past her com-
panion to the moonlight glistening over her garden.
“Constance has changed. I think, with fairness to her,
I can suggest to you a thought that has occurred to me
more than once in the two years past. I sometimes


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 79
The clock in the lower hall struck twelve before the
District Attorney announced his intention of departing.
Upon Miss Hunter's insistence that she ring for a serv-
ant and send him to town in her carriage he shook his
head.
“The walk will do me good. And frankly I am a little
shaken by the tragedy. I want time to think things out.”
If Miss Hunter wanted to ask, “What things?" she
kept the question in her heart.
At the door he bowed low over her hand.
His companion stood in the front door watching as his
tall figure moved across the gravel of the driveway.
Once, as the sudden loneliness closed in about her, she
made a quick step forward and with one white hand
against a column called—“Courtney!”
At the sound of his name a name she had used little
during their years of knowing one another—the District
Attorney hurried back. A fine blush stole over Miss
Hunter's calm face as she stood there above him, and she
drew her scarlet lip between her teeth. Then he noticed
that she was trembling.
“Cornelia,” he said abruptly, “let me send into town
for some friend to come and stay the night with you.
This has been too much. You are sadly shaken from what
has passed.” But the lady shook her head.
"I–I confess to feeling faint for a moment when I
heard you leaving—I succumbed to the desire to call you
back. Laura is upstairs. She will see to me.”
In that moment while they stood there in the pale light


80 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
of the yard-tingling with the tragedy so close behind
them, those two each gained the knowledge of a fact-
Mr. Courtney Bryan, that Miss Cornelia Hunter was
appealing when frightened and alone and therefore she
should be neither—and Miss Cornelia Hunter, that she
was vastly satisfied with the gentleman's presence in time
of need. Therefore, instinctively, and being entirely femi-
nine, she endeavored to conceal this fact from him and
at the same time ask if she might further offer him re-
freshment-a sort of compensation for his being called
back to the porch.
"I wish, Courtney,” she said with gentle insistence in
her well-bred voice, "you would let me give you some-
thing further to drink. You too are sadly shaken. And
I am afraid that was very bad whisky I offered you.”
A charming smile spread over the firm lips of the Dis-
trict Attorney and a light shone in his eyes. “My dear
Cornelia,” he answered, “I have never seen any bad
whisky!” And with this, which brought the soft laugh
he knew, the gentleman, smiling very much to himself,
remembering the tall white figure on the porch, strode
on his way to town.
As she closed and locked the door Miss Hunter was
vastly comforted by the realization that only a few hours
would pass before she might again see Mr. Courtney
Bryan, that in seeing him her burdens might slide from
her own shoulders to his broad ones. So, comforted with
the knowledge of his strength, she was actually smiling
when she went upstairs. A night light burned in her room


· THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 81
and a figure rose from beside the bed and came forward.
It was her colored maid Laura, or “Lolly,” as Miss Hun-
ter had called the girl since childhood.
"Ah hyr what happen, Mis' Cornelia, an' Ah ain't
gwine let yo’go ter bed wifout ma tendin' ter yo ma-
sef,” the woman said. Miss Hunter, in the silence of her
house, suddenly found the woman's presence vastly com-
forting. Then she smiled and paused, looking out into
the sultry night. She was thinking of a tall white figure
striding toward town.
"It was nice of you to sit up waiting for me, Lolly,”
she said gratefully. “It is a fearful thing that has hap-
pened to our neighbors.”
“Yas'um,” the negress said, her eyes wide with respect-
ful interest. “In de mists of life we is in def,” she mut-
tered while she busied herself about her mistress. “Fo'
Gaud's sake, Mis’ Cornelia, look at dis hyr dress!”
The woman lighted two candles upon the dressing
table and Miss Hunter, seating herself before them,
unfastened the lace at her throat and began to take the
remaining hairpins from the coil of hair she had wound
so hastily in place after her passage through the roses.
Unpinning her lace collar she laid it before her upon the
dressing table. Next, her eyes far away through the win-
dow to where the moonlight glinted upon the round towers
of Appledore, she unfastened the beauty pins holding the
embroidered cuffs in place. Laura, kneeling beside her,
was removing the scratched and dew-drenched slippers.
As Miss Hunter unpinned her cuff there fell into her


82 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
lap four little white rolls of paper—those same she had,
through an instinctive dislike of disorder, gathered from
the red velvet carpet of her neighbor's floor.
The cuff half on hung from her wrist and she sat
looking at them. Then slowly, very slowly, she unrolled
the pieces, flattening them before her on the table.
And all in an instant the truth came over her.
Again she saw the disordered work basket, the little
embroidery scissors, patterned like a stork, lying with
their blades apart.
She spread the pieces carefully upon the white marble
of her dressing table, flattening them with her fingers.
They were bits scraped by some sharp blade from a
label. The pieces were white and had had, she thought,
a border of red and something was written below or
printed in ink. Upon one piece was the tiny half of a
skull and the ends of what might be crossed bones. Upon
another, and in larger letters printed also in red, the
letters SON. And below on still another, HEO, and on the
last the single letter L.
With these bits of paper, red and white, and their
lettering printed carefully in ink, Miss Hunter paused.
Before her came the picture of a thin dead hand, a hand
clasping a bottle of brown glass—with a torn label.
Why had the child, in her moment facing death,
snatched up her scissors and effaced its label? Why?
Lifting her own hand for a long time, Miss Hunter sat
staring at the two white blisters threading downward
across its palm.


Chapter X
In the red dawn that following morning, Laura ap-
peared with a cup of coffee. She drank it silently, star-
ing with heavy vacant eyes through the mists which
clung above her garden.
“Come with me into the garret, Laura,” she said, and
presently these two ascended the stairs to the top of the
house. Somewhere in that stilling place, behind the neat
rows of trunks and boxes, some with their steamer la-
bels bespeaking the grand tour," was a large pasteboard
box, a box Miss Hunter remembered placing there her-
self these many years ago. In it were crisp, long folded
veils bordered with heavy crêpe. They had been her
mother's and it was the custom when friends were sud-
denly bereaved, as these friends were now, to send such
things beneath which to hide their grief. And surely
no surer means could be secured. The veils were heavy
and so thick that barely the outline of a shaken face or
red-rimmed, tear-dimmed eyes could filter through. Bid-
ding Laura draw forth the box, Miss Hunter knelt in the
dim hot light and sorted out what she needed. Her hands
shrank from the scratchy touch of the crêpe. She de-
tested the very idea of such a thing. The smell of the
dyed stuffs coming to her was faintly nauseating. Before
83


84 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
her rose a picture of her own mother when a relative died;
her mother, tall and dreadful behind these draperies
of death. Their scratchiness when she, a child, in terror
at this figure which was not her mother, tried to nestle
close.
With a sigh of relief she covered the box and giving
the black things to Laura, closed the attic door.
She wore a flowing black muslin, high necked, and into
its crisp collar she fastened the miniature of her father,
surrounded by pearls. Her sleeves were puffed, and from
the elbow, fitting close in tucked bands of the black, her
white arms gleamed.
It was a very stately figure which descended the stairs
that morning followed silently by Laura with the veils.
“I think you had better come with me, Lolly," Miss
Hunter had said. “There will be many people coming
and going there to-day and perhaps you can help in
answering the door.”
In the mist-hung garden the first rays of the sun were
beginning to gild the grass and along the farther side by
the hedge the band of white June lilies, gloriously open
before the sun, hung their heads frosted with the dew.
Miss Hunter paused long enough to gather a great arm-
ful of these fragrant messengers and tying them with a
wide purple satin ribbon she had thrown over her arm
for the purpose, proceeded to Appledore Towers.
She was beautiful that morning as she walked toward
the stricken house of her friend, her sleek hair, brushed
from her forehead and fastened in the back with a high


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 85
tortoise-shell comb, her flowing black lawn skirts trailing
softly over the grass, her arms full of the fragrant lilies.
A dark shadow rose from just inside the door as she
came up the steps; it was old Sarah who had watched the
night through in the hall. She raised a shaking withered
old hand.
“Dey's done quiet down at las' Mis' Cornelia," the old
woman said, her toothless gums nibbling in anxiety.
“Dey was goin' about from one room ter anudder most
ob de night an' hit look like Mis’ Constance an' Mister
Algy won't ’low nobody tech her or dem white things dey
got ter lay her out. Hid'd seem dey fergit Ah was de fust
ter tek dat chile in ma arms when she draw her brei o'
life. An' hit look like Ah could he'p lay dat lamb out
for her lastin' res’.” A meager tear trickled down across
her shaking old face and disappeared into a wrinkle.
“Don't be troubled, Sarah,” Miss Hunter said, placing
her lilies in the old negress's arms. “Take these up and
lay them at her side. She-she always loved the lilies.
When she was little I remember her coming with her
little wheelbarrow to help me when I planted them.”
The worn old negress sniffed with gratitude, holding
the lilies in her trembling arms.
“Would yo'all like ter com’up wid me an’look at ma
chile? Dey don put on a white dress an' fix her hair an'
dat-dat-” her old chin nibbled fiercely at the words
-“dat what she done don't show.”
Miss Hunter in the heavy dusk of the hall shook her
head.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 1
87
Appledore, who stood in the hall, shaking his hand and
murmuring words of sympathy for his bereavement.
Following the custom of the time, a negro had been
sent into the town very early and, those forms having
been kept set up by the printer, the family coachman
was presently sent about the countryside on horseback
bearing, incased in heavy, nearly square white envel-
opes with black borders, the following black-bordered
enclosure:
The Funeral Services of
Miss Elizabeth Appledore
Who deceased
June 24th
At the home of her parents ·
Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Appledore
One mile from the city of
Harrisville, Kentucky
Will be held at the residence
On the morning of June 26, 1890, at 10 o'clock
“Brief Life Is Here Our Portion”
Somehow or other the empty day passed. After the
inquest Mr. Appledore had driven into town, returning
almost immediately, and toward noon the long black
undertaker's wagon drove into the grounds and the cas-
ket was carried into the house.
Mrs. Appledore, it appeared, had asked that the body
be not brought into the stately double parlors, stretching
along the left side of the house, that day, and had further


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
89
“Peacefully sleep, Oh peacefully rest,
Lay down thy head on thy Savior's breast.”
The heavy stillness was like the grave.
Mr. Appledore joined his wife at the foot of the stairs
and the neighbors, with respectful glances, moved back
to let them fall in line directly behind the casket.
There may have been an odd observation made by Miss
Hunter in that moment of quiet standing aside as her
neighbor passed. Mrs. Appledore was clad in black,
the veil of crêpe so dense that her features were barely
discernible. But Miss Hunter noticed the heavy eyes,
dry with much weeping, and her neighbor's face heavily
powdered. This was unusual for that day, and Mrs.
Appledore had always expressed a marked dislike for any
such thing. So this morning, shaken by death, it seemed
odd that she should have employed this means for con-
cealing her grief-stricken face.
Lillian, also heavily veiled, followed close behind her
on the arm of Mr. Herbert Eltinge.
Miss Hunter, upon the arm of the District Attorney,
followed, and the neighbors and friends flocked after them
into the blazing sunlight in that dreary walk to the
grave. The commitment service was mercifully brief and
there was not the usual handshaking after the last clods
of the hard brown earth were in place above all that was
mortal of Elizabeth Appledore.
“Oh, when, when,” thought Miss Hunter, stately and
serene in her black lawn, near her friend, "when will we


90
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
grow past this! This merciless standing while the clods
are flung in place!”
It is just possible that Mr. Bryan shared her thought,
or this gentleman may have seen the slight movement of
Miss Hunter's lips, for with a kindly movement he drew
closer, drawing her hand through his arm.
But at last it was all over and in twos and threes, when
the family had returned to the house, the neighbors fol-
lowed, talking in hushed voices of the tragedy come so
suddenly upon the house.
Miss Hunter remained behind in the hot sweet shade
of the cedars arranging the flowers, brought in armfuls
by the neighbors, over the sharp dry mound, then even
she returned to the house, leaving old Sarah in nibbling
silence settling a wreath here or straightening a sheaf of
roses there.
When she arrived at the house the last of the neighbors
had gone and the Bishop, divested of his robes, was send-
ing a message of consolation by Mr. Eltinge to the
family, who had at once retired to their rooms.
The great rooms stretched dim and hot and flower-
scented before her, so Miss Hunter bade the servant
rearrange the furniture and open the windows. She di-
rected that some food be prepared for the family and once
she went into the hot darkness of Mrs. Appledore's room
and begged that she would eat a little.
It is doubtful if the lady even heard her. She had re-
moved her bonnet and resumed the little lace shawl over
her hair. Sitting erect and dry eyed upon the side of the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 91
couch, Miss Hunter was again aware of the white
powder upon Mrs. Appledore's face and of the stiff
black gloves she had worn to the grave.
That brief moment of gentle counsel on the part of
Miss Hunter to her neighbor was to be a beginning, had
she but known it-a beginning of characteristics in her
friend which were to widen until they struck their roots
about Miss Hunter's heart.
“Can't you take off your gloves, Constance," she
begged, “and try and eat a little?” But the other, staring
from under the lace, slowly shook her head.
"No," she whispered after a while. “No, never."
So dazed was she with sleeplessness and fatigue from
her neighbor's suffering that Miss Hunter may have put
this answer down to the tragedy which had engulfed them.
But certainly as the months rolled by, when summer had
shriveled and wilted into autumn, she came to realize
that never again was she to see her friend without those
long black gloves—those gloves and the heavy coat of
• powder with which this poor woman sought to shield
her sorrow from the world. Poor symbols of a broken
heart!


Chapter XI
AFTER a futile attempt at having some dinner, Miss
Hunter discarded the black lawn dress, which seemed
still to smell faintly of the grave, and donning her flow-
ing wrapper, lay listlessly beside her window.
It was not unusual for ladies to be "prostrated" with
grief or shock and these things lay heavily at Miss Hun-
ter's heart. She could not adjust her mind to the fact across
the garden when only yesterday—her mind fled from
yesterday, it was the day before she had seen the child,
slim and pretty, wandering desolately about the garden.
It was the custom for the ladies of these families, with
lawn skirts held discreetly from the dust, to take a walk
toward sundown. Yes, she had seen her then. And now?
Now where was she?
Why could she, their neighbor, not be willing quite to
accept it? They had accepted it, poor, poor Mrs. Apple-
dore and the stricken father. Lillian apparently had the
love of Mr. Herbert Eltinge, and Miss Hunter, knowing
her own youth, felt a vague sense of comfort at the
thought that this daughter had at least the comfort of a
lover's arms. A thought, by the way, extremely advanced
for the times.
As twilight fell, heavy and still, Miss Hunter's rest-
for the arms. A thosaughter har
92


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 93
lessness grew unbearable. It was nothing definite noth-
ing tangible, nothing that she could put into words.
Yet again her mind would return to the house of death
lying still and hot across the hedges. “They,” she pon-
dered to herself, “they have accepted it as suicide. So
why not I?”
And what was there to give conviction to her unrest?
She had only those four little rolls of paper scraped from
a bottle. “When a person, a child in love, does that
there is no use in searching for a reason.” She sighed
heavily and turning the pillow, hot from her cheek, she
realized that there was a reason. A reason to her Victor-
ian sensibilities almost as tragic as its termination.
That the love of a young lady should not be returned
was an unbearable thing. A thing so faintly indelicate that
Miss Hunter frowned, turning her heavy eyes to the vel-
vet darkness gathering before moonrise in her garden.
She tried, unsuccessfully, to put herself in the place
of the dead girl. She even searched back into her own
youth for such a passion as that which had torn the
mind and heart of the child which could bring her to
such a step. No, there was absolutely nothing like it.
We all have had imaginings of suicide at one time or
other: vague, formless, but imaginings nevertheless of
the grief to those we might leave behind. Their sorrow
for the sorrows they have inflicted upon us. A morbid
satisfaction in the knowledge of this grief. Yet without
the certainty that those behind us would grieve there
would never have been born the thought.


94 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Of Miss Hunter's own love there stood out only the
memory, clear cut, crystalline, and pure. At twenty she
had been engaged and her lover had gone West to seek
his fortune. There had been a night of farewell; of dim
heat and yellow moon, like the night she followed Mr.
Eltinge across her garden. She had stood in her soft white
dress, clinging to her lover in the misty darkness.
Then he had gone away. A year later came news that
he was dead. Dead and alone in that foreign place called
California.
Afterwards she had put away her grief with the plans
for her wedding and the heavy, now yellowing satin, into
a carved cedar chest up in the garret.
And that was twenty years ago. Her father and mother
had died and the place belonged to her. So she had taken
up her life anew, living calmly and sedately, a woman of
wide interests, and in thought slightly ahead of her
times.
Each summer when her roses bloomed, bloomed to
scatter their pink and white shells beneath the bushes,
she would gather carefully a basket of these and carry
them away to the attic, and scatter them among the folds
of the yellowing satin, removing those, crisp now and dry,
from the summer before. Afterwards she would close the
chest and come away downstairs to take up her life
anew.
No one knew of this custom, but it gave her great
comfort. The touch of the stiff ivory folds—the soft
coolness of the petals strewn upon its surface!


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 95
No, nowhere in her life and by her life she meant the
days before these yearly trips to the chest in the attic
began, was there a feeling akin to that which poor Eliza-
beth had known in her young heart, wandering desolate
and alone in the hot twilight.
Once while Laura was lighting the lamps in the hall
she summoned her and bade her cross the garden to her
neighbor's and ask if Mrs. Appledore would see her-if
there was anything she could do. She had the girl bring
her supper to her on a tray and when she had eaten it
she lay waiting for her answer.
“No'm,” Laura had said, returning from her errand.
“No'm, dey say dey sen' dey love an' thanks, but dey
don't want nuffin. 'Cept Mis' Appledore say kin yo be so
good as to come over in de mo’nin'. Dey is goin' away."
“Going away?”
Miss Hunter sat up on her sofa.
“Yas ’um. Least ways dat what dat ol' Sarah say. But
yo' cyrnt put no pendance in her nibblin' an mutterin'.
Look like she done tek de house in han' an' run it. She
put me in mine' ob a ole hant snufflin' up an' down dem
stairs packin' de message.”
“You did not see the family, any of them?”
“No'm. Jes ol' Sarah come wid de message from up-
stairs. Look like she's 'stracted wid her own importance.
Call herse'f tendin’ter things.”
It was not unusual, these passages of words between the
servants, and Miss Hunter, thanking Laura, bade her
take the tray downstairs.


96 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
And so the day of the funeral of Elizabeth Appledore
passed. Once, when she had undressed in the darkness and
stood in her white night dress looking out of her window,
Miss Hunter saw a single light burning steadily from a
third-story window in the house across the garden. The
room she had fancied must be occupied by Mr. Herbert
Eltinge.
“Going away?”Well, perhaps it was the best thing they
could do. And what of Mr. Herbert Eltinge? Would he
live in the big empty house with its memories of death?
Would he continue in charge of Mr. Algernon Appledore's
affairs at Appledore & Erwin? Or would he accompany
them? No, she did not believe the family entirely recog-
nized the affair between the young man and Lillian.
Even with the chaperonage of the father and mother, it
is doubtful if they would ask him to accompany them.
What were the thoughts of the studious young man alone
in his upper room? Were they straying across the yard to
the sharp new grave of hard red clods, of wilting flowers?
That was a long night, of heat like cotton wool pressed
to her face, of breathless silence in the stress of dreadful
thought. And once, it was past three, when the warmth
of the sheet grew unbearable, Miss Hunter rose and
taking a palm-leaf fan seated herself at her window, again
leaning her white arms upon its sill. Across the garden
the light still burned in the upper window and as she
looked steadily at it through the haze of moonlight she
fancied a shadow walked back and forth, back and forth
across the square of light.


Chapter XII
As the day began to break across the still fields of blue
grass, ghostly in the westering moon, Miss Hunter slept a
little, not to waken till past seven when Laura softly en-
tered with a steaming cup on a tray.
Sitting up in bed Miss Hunter drank the coffee and
asked what time it was.
“Yo' was so wore out, Ah come hyr onst an' seed yo'
was sleepin' so Ah never mek no noise,” Laura defended
herself.
Miss Hunter bade her prepare her bath and after
hastily dressing, had breakfast at one end of the cold
stretch of mahogany in her dining room, then putting
on the wide hat with its twist of lace, once more crossed
her garden to her neighbor's.
In the lower hall she was greeted by Lillian Appledore
standing listlessly looking down the road. Yet, such
were the marks of sleeplessness, of ravaged grief upon her
face, that Miss Hunter would not have recognized her.
The girl was as white as a ghost, her wide soft eyes
deeply circled with black. Her black dress, high-necked
and trailing, she had plainly not removed during the
night.
98


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 99
“Yes,” Miss Hunter thought, “it is well they are
going away.”
The girl lifted her eyes and tried to smile.
"It is good of you to come so early, Miss Hunter,"
she said, her voice far away. “I think, that is, if you will
go to mamma I believe you can get her to eat a little.
SheI believe when your message came last night, she
sent word that we are planning to close the house and go
away.”
“It is the best thing you can do,” Miss Hunter com-
forted. “And you must call on me, night or day, Lillian,
if I can be of service. Where are you going?”.
The girl shook her head. “Somewhere,” she said
heavily. “Somewhere, I forgot to ask them where.”
Miss Hunter went past her up the stairs, where outside
her mistress's door old Sarah was still sitting.
“Mistis is in Mis' 'Lizabeth's room,” she said, her old
chin nibbling more fiercely than ever. “She say she
gwine put away de things herse'f. Look lik’ cyrnt no-
body do nothin' wid her. Jes' act lik’ she is 'stracted.”
"It is perhaps the best thing she can do,” Miss Hunter
thought, pausing a moment to comfort the stricken old
negress. “If you will tell her I received her message, and
am here, perhaps she will let me help her.”
“She's in dar," the old negress indicated the dead girl's
door with a shaking hand. “She say when yo' all come
ter sen yo' in.”
When Miss Hunter opened the door of Elizabeth
Appledore's room she was met by confusion. Her neigh-


100 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
bor, dressed as when she last saw her, even to the black
silk gloves and the lace above her forehead, stood by the
side of the bed sorting and resorting her daughter's cloth-
ing with helpless fingers. At sight of Miss Hunter she let
fall a dress she was pressing to her face, and in the morn-
ing light Miss Hunter was more conscious of the heavily
powdered features than ever.
“Cornelia,” Mrs. Appledore said, “it is very good of
you to come. Algernon has decided it is best for us to go
away and close the house. And I couldn't leave this to
another. I am putting away her things,” and here her
voice shook. “Oh, her poor, pretty little things!”
The slow tears welled up into the eyes that had been so
dry, so tearless all that long day before, and her neighbor
was faintly thankful. She came to her side and spoke.
“Sit down over there, Constance,” she said. “And I will
attend to everything; you must rest—if only for Lillian's
sake. Sit down and I will do whatever you tell me with the
things."
As she approached the bed Mrs. Appledore shrank
back and held up a gloved hand.
“No, Cornelia, no,” she gasped, steadying herself by
one of the bed posts. “I-only I must attend to these. I
do not want anyone else to touch them, if you please. It is
as though they were all I have left of my child. But it is a
great comfort to have you in the house. If you will be so
good as to sit over there and talk to me. It will be easier
if I do this myself. Indeed it will.”
Her distress was so apparent that Miss Hunter, being a


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 101
wise woman in the ways of nerves, did as she was bidden.
“I believe,” her neighbor went on in her hurried, breath-
less voice, “that it is the custom to give away such things.
This or that bit of jewelry or lace to a friend—the clothes
to some worthy person. But, Cornelia, I cannot bear the
thought of doing that, so-so I am going to pack the
things away and have them where I can look at them al-
ways, if I want to. It may be an indulgence, but I have
decided.”
As she spoke she drew out a little drawer of the bureau
beside the swinging mirror and turned its contents upon
the bed.
With a wave of memory and association Miss Hunter
watched her opening and closing the leather boxes lined
with velvet upon which the jewelry of the dead girl
rested.
There was the garnet set. Three many-pointed stars in
a necklace which could be worn in the hair as well. Two
bracelets of heavy medallions of the same red stones and a
breastpin. Miss Hunter had brought the child that from
Europe three summers before. There were the set of seed
pearls, a necklace of medallions, and a wide brooch which
had been Mrs. Appledore's mother's. Some golden chains
and a basket made of fine bands of gold woven and filled
with tiny jeweled flowers. She had often seen the dead
girl wear that. It was so very pretty.
When she came to the ivory fans, the handkerchiefs of
real lace, Miss Hunter pressed her lips together. She
had seen Elizabeth carry one of the fans, the Watteau,


102
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
of pale faded blue painted with courtiers minueting in a
garden. It was at a dance Miss Hunter had given when
the girls, sixteen and eighteen, had been at home one
summer. How pretty the child had been. She had worn a
blue muslin, bought in Paris, and her feet in blue kid
slippers were so tiny. She had had pink rosebuds in her
hair and when Miss Hunter had told her she was like a
columbine she had smiled and swept her a deep courtesy,
causing her skirts to billow about her.
A great horse-hair trunk, cavernous and yawning,
stood open by the bed and Mrs. Appledore tenderly
folded the garments and laid them away. There is a sense
of finality about this thing of putting away the garments
of the dead. Miss Hunter's thought traveled to her own
garret and a carved cedar chest where lay the white satin
of her youth. But that was laid away with only memories
of ecstasy—of love. While these
It was a long morning of opening and closing drawers,
of hat boxes, of finding rows of little slippers. When at last
it was finished, the lid closed, the key turned and placed
in Mrs. Appledore's bosom, she turned to her friend.
"I will have it taken up into the attic now and after-
wards-afterwards, I will rest. There are a few things
left-I had better tell old Sarah to have them bring down
another trunk, a smaller one, and when they are all
packed I will go to my room.”
When two negro men appeared, silent and shuffling,
and carried the heavy trunk through the hall to the third
story, Mrs. Appledore followed with Miss Hunter close


THAT GAI NINETIES MURDER 103
behind her. At the end of the hall was a trunk room.
Beyond this, through an unfinished doorway, an open
space gave to the unfloored attic, stretching away in dark-
ness over the rest of the house.
Bidding the men set the trunk back under the eaves,
Mrs. Appledore looked about her. The place was suffocat-
ing and once she raised her handkerchief and dabbed at
the moisture collecting on her face.
For some minutes she looked among the trunks and
massive handbags stacked against the walls.
“There is a little iron trunk somewhere," she said at
last, “I am looking for that. I thought-I thought if the
jewelry and smaller things were placed there they would
be more secure.”
Once she wavered and put her hand against a beam,
drawing in her breath, dazed with fatigue, yet when
Miss Hunter begged that she let her find the trunk, she
motioned her away.
“No,” she said, “it is the last thing I can do. When
we have finished it I will rest.”
She spent some time directing the negroes in moving
the larger trunks, searching for the one she wanted, and
once she pressed her handkerchief to her face. “It con-
tained nothing, I had often thought I would give it away.
But now it is exactly what I need.”
After a while she sank down exhausted.
“No,” she said, “it is not here. Perhaps I did give it
away and have forgotten. Well, it cannot be helped,”
and she directed one of the men to carry a leather port-


104
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
manteau to the lower room. It was as they passed down
the hall of the third story that she spoke again.
“It is possible that my husband or Mr. Eltinge may
have seen the trunk. They sometimes put papers and
things away. Would you, Cornelia, would you mind look-
ing in that room, that door, the third, that is Mr. El-
tinge's. Sometimes he works there at night with my hus-
band. See if it could be there."
Miss Hunter crossed the hall and tapped at the door.
Upon receiving no answer she turned the knob and en-
tered the room. And upon entering, an odd fancy came to
her mind. The place was in grim, bleak order, yet she had
that feeling, instinctive to a good housekeeper, that the
room was empty. Empty of something it had recently con-
tained. But on looking about her she could give no
reason for the thought. In that day of overcrowded rooms
it may have been the bleak order, the absence of rugs or
any furniture worthy of mention which gave rise to her
thought.
In the center of the room was a pine table covered with
an oilcloth. And by its side two chairs, of that type
familiarly known as kitchen chairs. Some shelves were
against the walls but these were empty. Through a door
standing open to the adjoining room Miss Hunter could
see the foot of the bed where the young man slept. Cross-
ing, she looked inside. The place was in order, yet
no sign of the iron trunk Mrs. Appledore wanted. Why,
when Miss Hunter returned to the room of bare table


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 105
and bleak kitchen chairs, she should have looked at the
equally bare floor, she did not know. There was a faint
smell about the place, and one to which she was vaguely
accustomed. Upon the floor and under the table with its
white oilcloth were varied colored stains, stains of such a
nature as to make Miss Hunter bend closer to examine
them. At the farther side of the room, that next the
window, the wall was flecked with tiny spots, yellow
and green and brown.
The negro men, carrying the portmanteau, had gone
down the stairs followed by Mrs. Appledore, and Miss
Hunter looked about her. She was in no hurry. In fact,
she was a person who did not do things in a hurry. The
place, for no reason, interested her and she stood in the
middle of the floor and looked and looked. Then crossing
to the window she looked down into the yard, and beyond
to her own garden, shimmering with heat waves in the
sun. Was it from this window that she had seen the light
so often, burning into the small hours of the morning?
A slight noise caused her to turn quickly, and facing her,
in the doorway leading to the hall, stood Mr. Herbert
Eltinge.
Perhaps there was the instinctive feeling that an ex-
planation was due the young man, coming suddenly upon
her in his private quarters, when he had not even known
she was in the house. A flush of annoyance crossed her
face. Certainly there was no attempt on the part of Mr.
Eltinge to disguise the surprise in his eyes.


106
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“I am looking,” Miss Hunter said, “at Mrs. Apple-
dore's request, for a trunk she thought by chance might
be here. She is putting away some things.” Then, “I am
sorry if my presence startled you.”
The consternation in the young man's face was un-
mistakable but he did not speak.
“It is a small trunk, one made of iron.”
If the young gentleman had shown surprise, it was now
Miss Hunter's turn, for there had crept into the heavy
eyes of the young man of studious forehead that same
fright which had looked out at her the morning she
stopped him to post her letter.
He mastered this quickly, however, and came forward.
“I am sorry I cannot help you,” he said with difficulty.
“I know nothing of any trunk. And I must apologize for
the appearance of the room. The fact is Mr. Appledore
and I often use it as a study in going over matters of the
firm, which accounts for its seeming bareness. Neither
he nor I like clutter. It is easier to work like this. I have
just been up here putting the books away.”
Now Miss Hunter was a lady of keen powers of observa-
tion and while the fright she fancied had come into the
young man's eyes had faded, she was equally certain that
her presence in the bleakly furnished little room was un-
desirable. And for that reason (Miss Hunter was past
forty and determined) she formed no idea of a speedy
departure.
“I wish you would be so good as to look in the other
rooms on this floor and see if by chance the trunk I am


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 107
in quest of could have been put there. When Mrs. Apple-
dore can dispose of this painful duty I hope she will be
able to rest.”
The young man's eyes focused upon her face and he
looked at her steadily. It was a long look and one Miss
Hunter was unable to understand. Then:
“Certainly, if you wish it.”
Turning, he left her alone in the middle of the bare
floor and from the hall she could hear him opening and
closing the doors in his search.
It was then that again Miss Hunter looked at the floor.
Perhaps the young man's face had sharpened her powers
of observation, or it is just possible that the feeling that
her presence was a distasteful one sharpened her wits,
but certainly her eyes saw something which heretofore
they had missed.
From the side of the table near which she stood, to
the door, across the floor of bare pine planks there
stretched two uneven scratches in the wood. They were
perfectly fresh, the white pine splinters showing in a
prickly line across the wood. It was as though something
heavy had been hastily dragged across the floor.
Now it has been remarked that Miss Hunter was not a
person who did things hurriedly. Neither did she jump
at conclusions. So it was not until she heard the final
door close down the passage and the returning footsteps
of Mr. Herbert Eltinge that she closed the door after her
and met that gentleman as he came down the hall.
“You have found it?” she asked.


108 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
The young man shook his head.
“No,” he replied, “it is not there."
“Then I must ask you to pardon my intrusion, which I
assure you was to fulfill a wish of Mrs. Appledore. I will
tell her that the trunk is nowhere to be found.”
With her usual courtesy Miss Hunter smiled at the
young man and passing him with no further word,
walked down the stairway, her softly whispering skirts
coming faintly to the young man standing alone in the
third-story hall.


Chapter XIII
It is just possible that Miss Hunter, after those brief
moments in the upper hall facing Mr. Herbert Eltinge,
would have carried out a somewhat vague plan, made
even the night before. A plan, that is to say, of matching
certain ideas of her own with those of the District At-
torney. But events at Appledore Towers began to happen
so thick and fast that all thought of this was driven from
her mind.
For Mrs. Appledore's sake, the remaining minutes of
laying away the jewels of the dead were mercifully brief,
and a short time afterwards all that was worldly of the
dead child was carried away into the garret by a stalwart
negro, who placed the portmanteau beside the cavernous
old trunk.
“Now,” Mrs. Appledore had said, opening and clos-
ing her eyes as though she had been awakened, “now I
can rest.”
Accompanying her to her bedroom, Miss Hunter drew
down the shades and persuaded her to lie down upon
the sofa. But not until the shades were drawn and Miss
Hunter, sitting near her with the calm assurance of under-
standing, would she remove the black lace veil she wore
across her hair.
"The light hurts my eyes,” she had murmured when
109


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER III
“Where will you go, Constance?” she asked presently.
“To some place in Michigan, I believe,” her friend
answered. “Algernon has been telegraphing about a cot-
tage somewhere there on the lake. He assures me it is
sufficiently remote and that is all I ask.”
Again Miss Hunter was annoyed that this remoteness
should be shared with Mr. Herbert Eltinge, but after all
it was possible it would be best for them all—to have
someone besides Mr. Appledore to see to their arrange-
ments for the summer.
It must have been very close to Miss Hunter's tongue
to ask, but her breeding as regards unnecessary questions
into the personal affairs of her neighbors came to her
rescue and she only said presently:
"I hope the journey will not tire you. There are two
changes of cars, I believe, one in Cincinnati, the other in
Chicago, are there not?”.
Somewhere back in her mind was the thought of sug-
gesting the Warm Springs in Virginia. They were suf-
ficiently remote and there was only the change at Mil-
boro and the drive across the mountains.
“Oh, we are not going by train!” There was an uncon-
scious emphasis on the last word which made Miss Hun-
ter glance at her friend.
“We will take the carriage and drive through. I have
made trips as long by carriage when I was a child. The
roads are even better now, and Algernon has agreed that
the journey made in this fashion will be good for us all.”
It was even as though she were apologizing for such a


II2
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
journey. To Miss Hunter and her love of a smug Pullman
with its attendant comforts, a three hundred mile jour-
ney by carriage in the sweltering heat of coming summer
suggested nothing but unrest. Yes, her neighbors had
certainly grown peculiar with these passing years. Yet
it was not so extraordinary, that journey in a carriage.
Back somewhere Miss Hunter recalled a visit of her
girlhood to a school friend in New Orleans. When the heat
of April drove them from the South they had taken the
family carriage and driven all the way to Warm Springs,
Virginia. That had taken three weeks. The family had
a cottage there and she had spent the summer.
Mrs. Appledore's voice brought her back from that far-
off day.
“We four will be driven by the coachman. Old Sarah is
to follow in the summer carriage with one of the servants.
I do not know which one Algernon will want. He is to
leave Abraham Isaacs and his wife to care for the house.
They will sleep in the servant rooms over the kitchen.”
Apparently the journey did not interest her very much.
This telling of her plans was only in explanation to her
neighbor. So plain was it that she intended dismissing
them from her mind that Miss Hunter could only reply
with an offer to come over now and then and see that all
was well with the house.
“Not that I doubt Abraham Isaacs will see to things
as you would have them,” she hurried to add.
On her way downstairs the house was deserted. Old
Sarah on her way up to her mistress explained that Mr.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
113
Appledore had driven into town to see to the details of
their journey and that Lillian and Mr. Eltinge had gone
with some belated floral offering to the square filled with
cedars and a new-made grave.
Miss Hunter shuddered when she thought of this.
“That those two should go to her now,” she thought.
But it is certain that could she have looked into the
eyes of the sister at that moment bending over the
mound of hot cracking earth and wilted flowers-into the
face of the young man, drawn and ghastly, she would
have been less severe.
Episcopalians though they were, there was penance to
be done and these two had taken a well-knotted scourge.
At home, that afternoon, there were duties as dis-
tasteful to her high-bred mind, shrinking from publicity,
as the visit to the grave by Lillian and Mr. Eltinge.
Callers and reporters, being denied the house of Apple-
dore, swarmed into her house, the former with tender re-
quests that if there should be anything they could do
would Miss Hunter notify them at once? The latter, per-
spiring and persistent, plied her with questions. The Cin-
cinnati papers were represented as well as those of Ken-
tucky, and Miss Hunter took a peculiar pleasure in send-
ing these gentleman “from a northern paper” about
their business! To these others there were only courteous
denials of any knowledge of the tragedy which had de-
scended upon Appledore Towers.
The fact that Mr. Algernon Appledore refused to speak
to any of them and that Mr. Herbert Eltinge was equally


114
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
inaccessible made this doubly trying, so by five o'clock,
completely worn out, she ordered her gates locked and
denied herself even to her most intimate friends.
So that was how the affairs of her neighbors stood on
the evening following Elizabeth Appledore's funeral.
Next morning old Sarah- met her in the yard on her
way across the garden to call on her friend, the hot wind
blowing Sarah's snowy hair clinging to her head like cotton
wool, and with marks of distress upon her withered face.
“Ah 'clair, Miss Cornelia, ef it ain't one thing it's er
nudder!” she exclaimed, nibbling fiercely with perplexity.
“What has happened now, Sarah?” the lady asked
kindly.
"It 'ud seem,” the Old negress went on,“dat what wid
packin' forty-leben trunks an wid no place ter carry half
ob um, an wid de calamity dat done 'sen' on us hit'd be
enough. But bless Gaud ef Marster ain't order dat we
got ter tek dem pets ob his'n 'long to Michigan wid
us!”
“What pets?”
“Dem rabbits and guinea pigs and dem mice he done
'sorb himsef wid. He was always a gret one after pets, but
if hit'd been a dorg or er cat hit wouldn't be so bad. I
'clair I don' know how we are gwine ter feed 'um long de
way. Onst I carry dem some lettuce lik’ he done tole me
an' open de do' an' hit look like Barnum's circus stream
out 'cross de gyrden scratchin' and buryin' and nibblin'.
Reckon yo' seen whar dey et up yo’ flowers dat time.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
115
Took me and Abraham Isaacs de better part ob de eve-
nin' ter corral ’um in de huts fo’Marster got home!"
Miss Hunter remembered the time and the old negress's
consternation. So now she smiled comfortingly. i
“Perhaps it will not be so bad. And possibly I can
suggest that he ship them by train. You see he evi-
dently intends to be away for some months and if your
master can take any pleasure in his pets I would try and
make the best of it. Suppose he wanted to take the game-
cocks or the goats out at the stable!”
“Yas’um," old Sarah sighed, “Ah reckon Gaud's way
is bes' but I 'clair I could sarve Him better ef He'd er
taken hit out on me some udder way dan packing rabbits
all over de country.”
Miss Hunter's ministrations to her friends that day
were apparently not desired. It was swelteringly hot.
Great domes of feathery clouds were tumbling and piling
themselves in the heavens when now and then their
heavy shadow would roll majestically across the lawn.
A yellow trail of dust, clinging above the road, marked its
windings into the country. The heat, heavy and moist,
was like a blanket against her face.
At noon she sent Laura across the garden with a basket
of delicately prepared jellies and cold food and two bottles
of her best Madeira.
At five o'clock she went about the house with Laura,
closing the windows. The clouds were rolling forward in a
heavy black mass from the west and the wind stirring


116
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
the dead calm of the maple trees turned their dull green
leaves showing the gray beneath. She could see old
Sarah, her apron over her head, covering the detested
rabbit hutches in her neighbor's back yard.
From over in the west there came a low roll of thunder,
and that ominous yellow-green light of an electrical
storm of Kentucky spread into her room. Looking into
the glass Miss Hunter's face was ghastly. There was a
vague feeling of unrest at her heart, a heavier sense of
depression than that of the hot morning three days before.
There was a sudden rush of wind about the house and
the fierce crash and rattle of hail descending like white
bullets upon her garden. A roar like a distant waterfall
came down the attic stairs from the roof, and she watched
the garden anxiously.
“The lilies would have been cut to pieces," she
thought, “I am glad I gathered them,” and then with a
strange obscurity of thought she remembered that the
lilies she had watched so tenderly were already dead.
At the thought of Elizabeth Appledore, dead also be-
neath the blanket of blinding hail, she winced. She hoped
that no such thought was in the mind of the stricken
mother lying, she was sure, with her dread of thunder-
storms, in her darkened room.
When the storm had passed and the twilight was com-
ing on with an hour's coolness like late fall, Laura came
up the stairs to announce that Mr. Herbert Eltinge was in
the parlor asking for Miss Hunter.
If this lady, when a few moments later she entered her


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
117
drawing room, was surprised at the visit, she disguised
the fact perfectly.
“Práy sit down, sir,” she said, motioning him to a
chair. But the young man remained standing.
"I can only remain a few moments,” he said evenly.
“I have brought a message from Mrs. Appledore; she
was afraid to have me use the telephone during the storm.
We are leaving sooner than we expected. Very early to-
morrow morning. At six o'clock, I believe. She asked me
to come over and give you her love and say good-by. It
appears she is greatly exhausted and does not wish even
to see her dearest friends."
There was something sincere in the message as the
young man delivered it, and Miss Hunter was instantly
appreciative.
"It is very kind of you to tell me this,” she said; "if
there should be any service I can render Constance, I
beg that she will let me know at once."
Mr. Herbert Eltinge bowed.
“And, Miss Hunter " and here he seemed to hesi-
tate, choosing his words with difficulty “If I seemed curt
or-or surprised when I met you in the third story, I beg
that you will forgive me. I had had little sleep and was
shaken by the experience through which the household
has passed. I beg that you will not think of it again.”
Unexpectedly Miss Hunter found this apology difficult
to acknowledge. So she only bowed to him in some em-
barrassment.
“Will you be so good as to thank Mrs. Appledore for


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
119
Her presence was no more desired at Appledore Towers,
left vacant for the summer, than it had been that moment
in the upper hall.
And so it was, next morning at six, when, as was her
custom, Miss Hunter opened her bedroom window and
leaned her white arms upon its sill, two carriages stood
before the doorway of Appledore Towers. Into the first
entered two heavily veiled figures, Mrs. Appledore and
her daughter. They were followed by Mr. Appledore and
Mr. Herbert Eltinge. Into the second, piled before and
behind with luggage (and yes, she smiled a little, on the
top was a latticed cage of rabbits), went old Sarah and
two other servants.
Not until this caravan had driven out of the yard and
down the road, cool from the rain of the night before,
did Miss Hunter descend the stair, the crisp skirts whis-
pering after her, and go into the dining room where
Laura was already waiting with her early coffee.


Chapter XIV
The following day Miss Hunter took to her bed. The
cool of the storm had passed, bringing in its wake an in-
tolerable damp heat which was suffocating. She had been
vastly shaken by the tragedy in the house next hers and
with the let down following the departure of the family,
she was completely prostrated. In those long hours of
stillness upon her house, of the soft ministrations of
Laura, of the sympathy from her personal friends, Miss
Hunter had ample time for thought.
So the second and third day, after the closing for the
summer of Appledore Towers, passed.
Due to the heat and the relaxing from the strain of
grief and sleeplessness she lapsed into an apathy from
which it was difficult to rouse.
Now and then came thoughts of her visit to the Dis-
trict Attorney's office, yet as has been said, Miss Hunter
was a lady who did not do things quickly. And, further-
more, her training had been against the very thought of
sensationalism.
So it was not until the third day that she felt well
enough to dress and go about her accustomed tasks.
“I wonder if it was not my imagination?" she thought
once, lying stretched full length beneath the cool sheet,
her arms stretched limp at her sides.
120


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 121
No, she had not been altogether mistaken. In those
moments while she waited for Mr. Appledore to de-
scend the stairs to the dead body of his daughter there
had certainly been a scraping sound somewhere from
above, and closely following it a muffled crash from the
cellar. They were almost simultaneous, and mingled
with the thud below her in the cellar there had been the
crash of glass.
And again were the splintery lines across the floor,
wavering and zigzagging toward the hall from the foot
of the bare table covered with oilcloth. Had they been
made by the ends of an iron trunk-it must have been
very heavy-dragged hastily across the floor? And Mrs.
Appledore had searched for a trunk. She was an excellent
housekeeper and was apt to know where things in her
house were placed Still, she may have been mistaken.
This habit of secrecy which had so suddenly arisen in
Miss Hunter's nature, she who had never had secrets in
her life, became suddenly absorbing. Absorbing and a
little stimulating. Doubling the hot pillow under her head
she plumped it into softness and lay looking through the
open square of her window into the hot, sultry darkness of
the summer night. A faint breeze brought in the odor of
wet shrubs mingled with the sharper one of earth.
Then she thought of the little rolls of paper lying in
her dressing-table drawer. And again came the perplexity
as to why the dead girl should have snatched up the
scissors and effaced its label before she had tried to take
the poison. Why was it in her poor distraught mind to


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 123
gust. Her mother had once informed her, and the saying
lingered, that a lady's name should appear in the press
only upon three occasions in her life her birth, her mar-
riage, and her death. And now here she was alluded to
as:“The kindly neighbor, Miss Cornelia Hunter, the first
to arrive upon the scene. The benevolent friend extend-
ing every power within her reach to the sad bereavement
of her friends."
Mr. Bryan's office was in a low line of brick buildings
on Maple Street. Trees shaded its colonial door of ancient
white-painted wood, a small brass plate, its lettering
almost obliterated by daily polishings, bore that gentle-
man's name and his office. The office, which gave by one
low white marble step to the brick pavement, contained
stately, rather heavy furniture, a rug of some indescribable
pattern, and the walls were covered with pictures-a
steel engraving of Henry Clay;Landseer's“Hounds,”and
one or two really fine colored plates of Audubon's“Birds.”
The room faced the west and within it was that cool still-
ness of early morning found in a business office.
Her chair was comfortable and Miss Hunter, faintly
wearied by her early drive, settled herself, perusing the
dying echoes of the Appledore tragedy. But it was not
until she finished that her eye caught another headline
at the farther side of the page:
Appledore & Erwin
Have Burglary.
Last night, probably between the hour of midnight and
morning, the store of Appledore & Erwin, situated on Center


124 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Street, was broken into by robbers. Due to the lateness of the
hour and the necessity of the Chronicle going to press it was
impossible for the reporter covering the burglary to deter-
mine the exact extent of the loss. Mr. Algernon Appledore
having departed with his wife and daughter for a journey
North, following their tragic bereavement, was not accessible
and Mr. Erwin, the senior partner of the firm, was summoned
from his bed.
This gentleman announced after a hurried investigation
that while the till had been tampered with, its lock and that
of a safe in the business office had withstood the boldness of
the robbers. On further investigation it was disclosed that on
the third floor, where a valuable collection of rugs collected
by the junior partner on his recent journeys to the Far East
were kept, the miscreants had accomplished more.
To Mr. Irwin it was at once apparent that some were
missing, and to his consternation he learned that one rug, a
Gurdez, the most highly prized of the collection, was among
those stolen. This rug has been valued at considerably above
five thousand dollars.
Due to the fact that Mr. Algernon Appledore was en route
by carriage to his destination in the North, it will be impossi-
ble to communicate with him, unless the gentleman is:
fortunate enough to see a reprint in a paper of some distant
town. (Will papers please copy.)
Miss Hunter reread the brief article and folded the
paper deliberately across her knee.
She remembered the Gurdez rug. It was, to her
mind trained in the finenesses of life, of surpassing
beauty. Twenty feet in length and eight across, its soft
purples and sky-blues, its yellow-golds and smoldering


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 125
reds had lingered in her mind. With the instinct that was
hers to inform herself fully upon the subject of cultiva-
tion, she had asked Mr. Algernon Appledore about the
rug and he had told her he had heard of its existence in
China-or was it India? He had made a special trip
to secure it. Yes, now she remembered. It was this rug
and its high price, the town believed, that had caused
the friction between the senior and junior partners.
Once, when she had had some unexpected money from
the estate of an aunt, she had driven into town and asked
to see the rug again. If there were financial difficulties
between the firm it might be possible that the rug would
be within her reach, and she had imagined it stretching
like a pool of slumbering color across the polished dark-
ness of her floor.
But the junior partner had been obdurate.
“No, the rug was not for sale. And would Miss Hunter
excuse him for not showing it to her? It was locked away
in a safe and sealed in brown paper against the possibility
of moths.”
So intense had been her disappointment that she had
refused to see the other rugs which Mr. Appledore had
offered to display.
That there was no tinge of satisfaction at his having
been so rudely deprived of his treasure was still further
proof of Miss Hunter's breeding. That these friends
should have another anxiety, however trivial in compari-
son to their present one, was faintly saddening.


126
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
And it was while she gripped the folded paper across
her knee and stared with far-away thought of those
travelers driving towards the lake that the door opened
to admit Mr. Bryan, the District Attorney.
This gentleman's cordial, “Well, well,” of surprised
good morning passed unheeded.
“Have you seen this?” she exclaimed, extending the
paper before he could hang his wide white panama hat
upon its polished wooden peg.
Without reply the gentleman in question took the
paper and read the brief article through. Then he
handed back the paper without comment.
“What do you make of it?” he asked at last.
“That there are thieves of discriminating taste," Miss
Hunter replied. “I wanted that rug myself and was told
somewhat brusquely by Mr. Appledore that it was not for
sale."
“Come in here, Cornelia,” the lawyer asked, going
before her into his private sanctum. She followed him
in and stood waiting until he had opened the side windows
to the sunlight of the still early morning, and offered her a
chair.
“Now what can I do for you?” he asked easily, seating
himself in a revolving chair which creaked ominously
under his weight. “I fancy this newspaper story of the
burglary is not the reason I am indebted to you for this
visit?"
Mr. Bryan had that easy confidence which blood and
education bring, and before she knew it Miss Hunter


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 127
was telling him of the vague wonderings that had dis-
turbed her vigil through the night.
When she had finished, beginning with the asking of
Mr. Eltinge to post her letter and the fear in his eyes, and
ending with a minute story of her impressions when she
had entered the house of death, she awaited his reply.
So interested was her companion that he requested her to
repeat the latter part of her story. When she had finished
he looked for some minutes through the window to a
back yard where against the whitewashed fence burdock
and jimson-weeds were growing.
Then he rose and going to a little safe between his
windows he fumbled for some time with the faintly click-
ing knob. Once Miss Hunter heard an exclamation from
him which made her smile, and once he glanced at her
over his shoulder.
"I must ask your pardon,” he said, “this combination
often brings forth worse sentiments than that. And I am
not often honored with ladies.” As he finished the lock
clicked and the door swung open. Inside, from a drawer
which he unlocked with a key from his watch chain, he
took out a package sealed with wax and carefully
labeled.
Carrying it to his desk and dusting his knees, the
District Attorney broke the seal and spread its contents
before him.
In it were the pistol which had taken the dead girl's life,
and carefully sealed that none of its contents be lost, the
brown bottle with the ground-glass stopper.


128
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
"Have you got those pieces with you?”
Miss Hunter opened the string of a little linen reticule
embroidered in white silk, which she carried over her
wrist, and produced them.
Carefully the gentleman spread them before him, Miss
Hunter watching over his shoulder.
Once, as she leaned over to settle one of the curling bits
with her white fingers, Mr. Bryan was conscious of the
crisp straw-like fragrance of her linen gown.
Most carefully daubing the back of the little rolls of
paper with gum arabic, they were replaced upon the label
of the bottle. When he had finished and held his work
before him, Miss Hunter drew in her breath. Surely she
had done well, with her instinctive dislike of disorder, to
gather those bits and place them in her cuff.
For here is what she read:
The National Chemical Co.
Stewart, Ill.
PHENOL
The completed label was of white paper with a crimson
border. The words “The National Chemical Co." and
“Stewart, Ill.,” were printed in red as was the word
“POISON” in larger letters at the bottom. There was a
skull and crossbones likewise in red, but the word
“PHENOL” had been printed in ink.
“Well, what do you make of it?" It was the voice of the
District Attorney after their prolonged stare.
“I was thinking or rather have been thinking since I


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
129
determined to show you these pieces and ask your advice
-that it might be well to ask the National Chemical
Company if the bottle is theirs and to whom they sold it.”
Mr. Bryan nodded. Then he smiled comfortingly at
Miss Hunter and leaning forward patted her hand.
“Come, Cornelia, you have other reasons. Out with
it. What else are you going to ask the National Chem-
ical Company of Stewart, Ill.?”.
“I was going to ask,” this lady repeated quietly, "if
they have record of the sale of this bottle and to whom it
was sold.”
There was silence for a moment in the little room.
Outside from the street Miss Hunter could hear her horses
switching and stamping at the flies, the melodious laugh
of her coachman conversing with some friend. And once,
in the stillness, the hurried shuffle of tiny hoofs in the dust
as a flock of sheep were driven bleating to their fate.
"I was told that this young Mr. Herbert Eltinge was
once a doctor. That he gave up his training to accept a
position as manager of Mr. Appledore's private affairs.
If this is the case could not this acid, which I believe is
not obtainable without a prescription, have been sold to
him? A physician could have secured it.”
“Yes,” her companion said, watching the dust from the
street settle against the window, “a physician could.”
“Very well,” Miss Hunter continued evenly, “but
why if the bottle belonged to young Eltinge should he
have denied it, why should poor Elizabeth have made the
frantic effort to efface the label before she tried to swal-


130
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
low it?” Then her voice trailed away. And she bit her lip,
remembering the hopeless unrequited love of the dead
girl for the man.
The District Attorney must have shared her thought,
for he bowed his head.
“Yes,” he said heavily, “that would explain it.”
“Nevertheless," Miss Hunter continued, “I shall
write my letter. Have you plain paper there?”
The Attorney rose and drew forward a sheet of note-
paper and opened the massive silver inkstand.
For some minutes there was no sound in the office save
the faint scratch, scratch of Miss Hunter's pen.


Chapter XV
THE posting of that letter was an actual relief to Miss
Hunter. While she drove through the streets filled with
morning quiet a vague sense of anticipation regarding its
answer came to her. Suppose the National Chemical
Company did reply that the bottle was sold to Mr.
Herbert Eltinge? Would it prove anything? Certainly it
was reasonable enough that the young man should have
bought the poison had he wanted to. He had his degree of
Doctor of Medicine, yet why had he said before the in-
quest that he knew nothing of it?
There is an instinctive quality that goes with this busi-
ness of detection. Great trailers of criminals have, by
their own confession, been known to sit suddenly bolt
upright from a sound sleep with the solution, so baffiling a
few hours ago, now clearly before their eyes. And certain
it is that while the conscious mind may abandon a scent
and return to cover, the subconscious one is trailing
forever on after those powers of darkness.
A juror locked up for hours has been known to arrive
at a decision, and on one occasion roused his fellows from
their sleep with the knowledge of his conviction.
So it is just possible that somewhere within her inner
self, past her barrier of heritage which made her shrink
ALITOS.
131


132 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
from anything so vulgar as interesting herself in a
criminal, Miss Hunter may have had a spark of the
sportsman urging her, all unwillingly, to the chase.
While she sat in her carriage and her coachman carried
the letter up the post-office steps, she was greeted by
one or two friends on their way to business. The story of
the robbery at Appledore & Erwin's was mildly exciting
the town, still so excited over Miss Elizabeth Appledore's
death, and the lady of composed face and immaculate
linen gown was plied with questions.
“Had she any idea that there might, in some way, be a
connection between the events?”
Miss Hunter shook her head.
“No, nothing."
“Had she ever heard that Mr. Appledore might be
pressed for funds, and if som ”.
But the question, involving as it did the integrity of a
gentleman, was too delicate to finish and Miss Hunter
frowned her disapproval.
Yet it is the history of disaster that with its coming
comes also the taking into public hands of the affairs of
the stricken, past, present, and to come. And for that
reason Miss Hunter frowned her frown of disapproval
when the possibility of irregularities was voiced to her.
It was past nine when she arrived at her home and her
belated breakfast was awaiting her. The mail had been
unusually large that morning and she had not finished
its perusal when she reached her door. There were count-
less letters from friends of the Appledores begging her for


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
133
details of the affair next door, and many were the offers of
assistance.
Miss Hunter's mind was preoccupied as she went about
her household duties that day. Some friends were coming
to lunch with her, and while she went about her belated
task of gathering her roses and filling the vases, she was
far from easy in her mind.
Suppose the National Chemical Co., should her con-
jecture prove correct, write Mr. Herbert Eltinge of the
inquiry into his personal affairs by his neighbor? The
outcome would be anything but pleasant. Yet Mr. Bryan
had advised her to do so, had even counselled her that
her judgment was excellent. And in this lasty mental
shifting of the blame to the wide shoulders of the Dis-
trict Attorney, Miss Cornelia showed herself a very
woman.
She was far from easy during luncheon, tired of answer-
ing the many questions as to her first minutes in the
Appledore house, and it was with a sense of relief that
after four o'clock she saw the last of her guests drive
away into the blistering heat of the afternoon.
“Thank heaven they did not bring their sewing and sit
till supper time,” she thought, impatiently watching the
last of the carriages disappear. Then she frowned.
“How stupid this thing of having a lengthy hot dinner
in the middle of the day!" In her mind Miss Hunter
envied the custom, already arriving from Philadelphia,
where she visited, of a lighter luncheon and the heavier
meal at seven in the evening. Still, she would cling to her


134 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Southern customs. “As though 'they' could teach us
how to live!” The "they” most certainly was Philadel-
phia.
Of course the letter that morning was behind Miss
Hunter's irritation. And she was no easier in her mind
when at half-past five she came downstairs, and as the
shadows lengthened, started for a walk in the wooded
pastures stretching at the back of her place.
Standing in the side yard, limp with the heat and the
faint discontent clinging to her, she whistled languidly
for her two greyhounds who usually found the com-
panionship of the stable grooms more to be desired than
that of their mistress.
They came to her bidding, loping through the back
yard, their long slender pink tongues lolling from their
mouths in weariness. It was very hot. Absently Miss
Hunter caressed them while they, with the prospect of a
walk in view, immediately regained their spirits and ca-
pered about her, dashing up to lick her hand, darting at
one another, and as suddenly dropping upon the long
grass at her feet.
And so behold her, the lady of the manor, strolling
toward the shade of her wooded pasture, her greyhounds
at her side, the faint red of the departing sun glinting on
her hair.
As Miss Hunter neared the bars leading from her yard
to the back fields, the dogs before her having cleared it at
a bound, nothing could have been farther from her
mind than that this wa!', seeking the solitude and shade


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
135
of the hackberry and ash trees by a distant pond, was to
be so eventful.
Passing through her fields thick with blue grass and
the occasional purple of iron-weed above the rest, her
mind grew quiet. She had been in the house too much,
that was it. The shock had been severe. “Perhaps”-and
here for the first time in three days her mind returned to
the vaguely planned trip to New York—"perhaps next
week I could go on for a few days. I believe it would
serve to relieve my mind from this oppression. Yes, if I
can get away I will not think of it again.”
So thought the stately lady of flowing garments,
puffed sleeves, and tiny waist, wandering after her grey-
hounds through the sunset of her summer fields.
That she, instead of “forgetting it,” should think of
nothing else in the weeks which were to follow she did
not imagine. In fact, before that week was finished noth-
ing could have been farther away than a pleasure journey
to New York.
She had crossed the two intervening fields and with a
sense of relief walked slowly beneath the shade of the
wooded pasture. Five hundred yards from where she
had let herself through a gate the trees were gathered,
as though to drink at the edges of a pond, filled with
limestone water and fed by a spring which kept it crystal
clear.
There were flat gray rocks there and by its banks Miss
Hunter could be cool and quiet.
The greyhounds dashing ahead of her to the goal


136
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
as
in
plunged over the stone wall bordering the pond and she
heard their splash in the deep blue water and presently
as she neared the bank saw their sleek gray heads swim-
ming idly after one another, the ripples breaking on the
farther banks.
And as she approached she heard something else. The
voices of children.
“Hey, git out of thar," from a boy and then:
“They ain't no chanst of gittin' er bite now!"
Fishing was not forbidden, the tiny gold-bellied sun
perch being the only stock of which the pond could
boast.
Arriving at the edge, Miss Hunter discovered a little
boy and girl, very ragged and barefooted, sitting dis-
consolately watching the graceful antics of the dogs in
their sport.
The children rose as she approached and nodded
shyly. They were the children of a woman, one Mollie
Laughlin, an indigent, tow-headed country moron who
kept the bodies and souls of herself and her husband and
children together from their scanty garden and the oc-
casional, if varied, work found by her husband.
Miss Hunter knew that even the perch, had the anglers
been successful, would go far toward making up the
family dinner.
“Good evenin', Miss Hunter," the girl piped. She was
Annie Laughlin, and since Miss Hunter saw that they
had clothes enough for school, an occasional present, and


138 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Edward, and tell your mother I would like to speak to
her; I will meet her at the fence.” So Edward, nothing
loath, ran.
The little lopsided house which the Laughlins occupied
stood just beyond the fence on a neighbor's land and the
last rays of the westering sun suffused its wavy window
panes.
“Don't yo' wake up the boarder with your shoutin',”
Annie shrilled after the small figure trotting away into
the dusk.
“What boarder?” Miss Hunter turned to her, amused.
The child's tongue instantly sought her cheek and
she looked down at her earth-stained feet in embarrass-
ment.
“We just calls him that to act grand,” she said in a
whisper. “Me and Eddard, we heard teacher say some-
thing about havin' a summer boarder, and when he come
las' night an' said he wanted ter stay, jest me an' Eddard
calls him that.”
“It's nice if your mother and father can find someone
who will pay a little toward the rent,” Miss Hunter said
absently. She had the Laughlins always more or less on
her mind and any glimmer of light upon their finances
was a relief to her.
“He's a funny boarder, though,” Annie said trustfully,
her embarrassment past. “He ain't like teacher. Our
boarder sleeps in the day time an' works at night. Did
t. “He aininnie said +
you ever 19 eps in the
“Tell me about him," Miss Hunter said indulgently.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 139
It always amused her to hear Annie talk. The child's
gentleness, her absolute confidence, touched her.
“He come yestiddy evenin' an'ast ma if she could take
him to board. Said he was night watchin' at the rock
crusher over yonder way," and the child pointed in a di-
rection away from Miss Hunter.
"He's awful onery though,” she added truthfully.
“An' he 'splained he wanted to sleep all the day an'at
night wake up like it was mornin'. Ma put him in the
little room upstairs,” she giggled. “I bet he gets hot
sleepin' there in the day, though.”
The history of the boarder was interrupted by the sight
of a slim little woman, already bent with overwork,
clad in a pink calico and faded sunbonnet. She came
toward the bars in funny little running jumps, Edward
trotting manfully behind trying to keep up.
She was panting and smiling when she reached the fence
and Miss Hunter greeted her.
“You mustn't run like that, Mollie,” she said, “I
only wanted to ask how you and the children were getting
along and see if you needed anything.” The remoteness
of the Laughlins made it unlikely that they had heard of
the death at Appledore Towers, and Miss Hunter was
faintly relieved that here at least was one person who
would not ply her with questions.
“Eddard tol' me that Annie tol' yo' about the hams,”
she said hopefully, “an' I would er come over ter ast
you myself this mornin' hadn't it been my mind was so
took up with the fire.”


140 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
---
“What fire?” Miss Hunter interrupted. The mention
of fire always struck a chill at her heart. Once in her girl-
hood a stable had burned and three of the mares with
their foals
“What fire?”
“Turned out twarn't nothin',” Mollie reassured her.
“But when I first saw hit I set up in bed an' hollered to
the chilern that thar was somethin' afire over your way.
You know how deceivin' a fire is at night. It ’uz long about
three o'clock. I know it was three for I heard the clock a
hittin' as we run out the do'. My husband was over
Nicolville way sellin' hogs an' me an' the chilern run over
here. Well,when we got to the bars yonderwe seed it warn't
nothin' so large as hit had looked. Right over yonder just
back of that 'air little rise in ground across the pond is a
holler and the flames was shootin' right up out o' that.
Me an' the chilern made over to hit but befo’ we could git
thar hit was beginnin' to die down. Look like somebody
must 'a' throwed coal oil on somethin' the way the flames
was burnin'. Well, there warn't nothin' much we could
see, but this mornin' after it was light we walked over to
hit again an' what do you think we found?”
“What?”
“Somebody had been burnin' a rug."
“A what?”
“Yas 'um, a rug."
Miss Hunter could only stare at her.
“I found a little strip of hit plain as plain can be.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
141
Come on over thar an' I'll show you. Look like nobody
got any business a burnin' stuff on your land.”
Just what Miss Hunter's thoughts werein the short walk
to the rise in ground on the farther side of the pond may
well be imagined. The dogs capered before her, and once
there was a flash of brown, a spot of white, and the sud-
den leveling to the ground as the greyhounds jumped a
rabbit.
“Annie's tol' you about our boarder?” Mollie Laughlin
asked proudly as they walked on.
“Yes, I am glad if he pays something to help along."
“Yas’um, he pays; pretty good, too. Says he wants ter
sleep in the day fer he's night watchin' at night. That's
why he wasn't here when I seen the fire.” Then she
laughed.
“Dunno ef hit's goin' ter pay me so good into the bar-
gain,” Mollie continued. “He's awful greasy. When he
gits back from the rock quarry or thresher or whatever
'tis he's watchin', he's as black as a nigger. I tole him I'd
have ter take the sheets offen the bed and let him lay
next the tick ef he kept stainin' 'um with tar. An' hit
looks like he don't never shave.”
By now they had reached the mound and just beyond
it was the hollow. In its depths was a pile of charred,
blackened ruins which might have been burned straw.
Among these were the ashes which certainly might have
been the cinders from a rug.
Eddard trotted forward and from the edge of the ashes


142
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
drew forth a long strip perhaps an inch wide. The rug
had been heavily bound and the fire had gone out before
reaching the extreme border.
Miss Hunter took the charred strip into her hands
and stood for a long time studying it. Then she suddenly
felt cold all over. Her brief admiration of the Gurdez
so proudly owned and displayed two years ago by Mr.
Appledore returned to her.
That richness of its purple—that smoldering red and
gold
Without question—beyond a doubt, here was a
charred fragment of the Gurdez rug.
But it was not until almost dark, and when Miss
Hunter had returned to her own house and telephoned
for the District Attorney, that she could free her mind
from the perplexity of the burning.


Chapter XVI
ed a polite and good enousrard any
In the evening mail awaiting her was a post card, not,
as one might have supposed, from Mr. Appledore, but Mr.
Herbert Eltinge. It was dated the day before and mailed
at a town some hundred and fifty miles distant. It con-
tained a polite apology for the trouble involved, but would
Miss Hunter be good enough to ask her coachman to
direct the post office to forward any mail for him, and
giving the address of a town they should reach a hundred
miles farther on, about halfway to the end of their
journey. The postal was carefully and most courteously
written and at its close stated that the journey was
proving as pleasant as could be expected, that Mr. Apple-
dore was too tired to write, and that Mrs. Appledore
requested she might send her love.
Now it is a failing of the masculine mind not to be en-
tirely convinced by the feminine on theories concern-
ing mystery unless amply substantiated by fact. And
to this weakness the District Attorney proved himself no
exception.
He arrived an hour after Miss Hunter's message to
his house, explaining that he had closed his office at noon
and spent the afternoon, or evening as it was called in
Kentucky, at the reservoir, fishing.
143


144 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
He was immaculate in white linen, his hair brushed
back from his massive forehead, his nose gleaming
brightly red from recent contact with the broiling sun.
When Laura was out of the room, Miss Hunter's hands
paused among the tall glasses of iced tea.
“Well,” Mr. Bryan smiled encouragingly across at her,
“what has happened since early morning? Something, I
take it. I don't believe you ever honored me by a sum-
mons before.”
Miss Hunter ignored this last. It was a day of stilted
compliment and she felt at war with the entire race of
men just then.
Lowering her voice she told him distinctly of her walk
to the pond, of the chatter of the Laughlin children, and
lastly of Mollie Laughlin and the burnt rug.
When she finished Mr. Bryan put down his glass and
sat looking past her toward the window.
"It's interesting.” he admitted. “Very.” Then he
drew a deep breath. “But really, now, isn't it just possible
that a thief fancying himself hard pressed had found the
rug too sizable to handle with safety and got cold feet, as
they say, and took that means of destroying the traces
of his theft?”
“I have thought of that,” Miss Hunter parried, “but
will you tell me why a thief, when he had been so success-
ful in carrying away the finest of the rugs, should have
burned it a short two hours, maybe less, afterwards?
Why, there was barely time to examine his booty, much
less find he could not dispose of it.”


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 145
The District Attorney knitted his brows.
“Are you quite sure, Cornelia,” he said. “Are you
sure it was the Gurdez rug? Come, now, isn't this thing
getting a little on your mind? It was almost dark and
someone might have carried a lot of trash over into the
field and burned it. It may have been brush.”
“Which shows you are neither a housekeeper nor a
farmer," the lady answered with spirit. “Housecleaning
is done in the spring and there is no brush to burn in the
latter part of June.”
Her vis-à-vis grinned.
“Score one. But seriously, before we take this matter
up with the police I think it would be well to look at
the strip you found and make sure. And if there's any
doubt about it we might take it to Mr. Erwin and ask
him. He will know.”
And so it was decided. After supper they sat for a long
time upon the front porch. The moon was beginning to
wane and did not rise till after ten, a great lop-sided ball
of gold creeping majestically out of the east.
While they sat there, the District Attorney holding
a julep with a napkin and from time to time burying
his sunburned nose in the cool fragrance of the mint,
Miss Hunter mentioned the postal from Mr. Herbert
Eltinge.
“And that,” Mr. Bryan said when she had finished,"is
the most interesting thing I have heard yet.”
The lady raised her eyebrows.
“It shows two things: First, how far they have pro-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 147
wish to keep in your good graces was born with the
moment you faced him regarding the missing trunk?
I would give something to see inside that unfurnished
room. Their study.”
“But after all,” Miss Hunter said evenly, “where are
we getting to? What does it all mean? Murder has not
been done. The young man was employed by Mr. Apple-
dore and apparently has given entire satisfaction. Even
Constance, with the tragedy of Elizabeth's unreturned
love, has actually taken his side and allowed him to go
on the journey with them. And really, the young man
was not, as far as I can see, to blame. It was Elizabeth
who fell in love. The child loved study. This young
Eltinge was evidently a student”—and here she told
Mr. Bryan of the constant light burning so often into
the small hours of the night in the room in the third
story.
“Well, it certainly brings us around in a circle. Ap-
parently we are exactly where we started. I tell you what,
I will come out here first thing in the morning and to-
gether we will go out to the pond and look at the fragment
of the rug. Yes, we will take it into town and have Mr.
Erwin verify our suspicions.”
It had grown late and the mists were rising. Across the
garden the moonlight was bathing the majestic lines of
Appledore Towers in its silvery light.
On the lower step Mr. Bryan shook hands with his
friend and after bidding her good-night he stood for
some minutes looking toward the house. Then no nearer


148 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
to a solution than when he had arrived, the gentleman
walked off in the direction of the town.
Again Miss Hunter had urged that he take her car-
riage and again he had refused.
It was not yet seven o'clock when he drove into the
yard the following morning. Miss Hunter ordered Laura
to bring the coffee out upon the porch and when they had
drunk it they started. The wooded pastures were full of
the soft noises of early summer. A little colt trilling a
shrill whinny to its mother-over in a distant pasture the
faint tinkle of a sheep bell, and now and then the bleating
of a lamb. As they passed the stable two grooms were
sweeping the hallway and cleaning out the stalls, and from
a pile of fresh manure by the outer door a faint thread of
steam stole up into the air.
The two greyhounds, heavily fed at breakfast, lay
in the early morning sun against the side of the stable,
blinking their eyes in the strong light, and faintly flapping
their ratlike tails in the dust as Miss Hunter spoke to
them. But they did not offer to accompany her.
The old coachman paused in his sweeping and touched
his hat.
“Mornin', Mistis,” he said gravely. “Mornin', Mister
Bryan. Yo' all goin' after mushrooms? Hit's too dry fo'
um, I'm fred.”
Passing through a grove of slim poplars, pressing to-
gether over the sunken graves of a slave graveyard, Miss
Hunter paused long enough to gather some belated wind-
tal.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
149
flowers growing in the heavy shade, and fastened them
in her belt.
“I tell you, Cornelia, half our life is wasted in not liv-
ing these early morning hours," the Attorney said once
as they approached the pond. Some mares, fresh from
their feed boxes along the fence, were standing in a prim
circle as though enjoying an early morning gossip.
When they passed, one came slowly over to Miss Hunter
and nuzzled her velvet nose in the cup of her hand.
Throwing forward her ears with polite inquiry, the mare
looked with friendly questioning at the District At-
torney.
The little knoll, beyond which was the hollow of burned
ashes, was immediately in front of them as they passed
on; the mare, following a few steps, paused and surveying
them with a soft indolence, returned to her mates.
“There,” Miss Hunter exclaimed, and pointed. “There
are the ashes.”
The District Attorney went forward and poked among
them with his stick. They were thick and heavy, some of
the pieces still clinging together. After a moment he knelt
upon the ground and sniffed at the edges where the grass
was seared and yellow from the fire.
"Someone has used coal oil,” he announced, rising,
“the place reeks of it. Now where is your burned sample
of the Gurdez rug?”.
Miss Hunter was looking at the pile of ashes. Once she
went forward and scanned them closely and once she


150
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
turned the pile over and over with the District Attorney's
cane.
But look and look as she would, there in the yellow
light of the sun filtering through the trees, the burned
border of the rug, left there last night, was nowhere to
be found.
“Wait a moment,"Miss Hunter exclaimed. She was not
wont to abandon a search so easily, or perhaps a smile
was curling the corners of her companion's mouth.Walking
quickly to the bars which separated her own rich pasture
from the dry, clod-spread stretch leading to the sagging
house of Mollie Laughlin, she leaned upon the bars and
called.
“Mollie! Oh Mol—li—e!”
From around the corner of the house two little tow heads
appeared, Annie and “Eddard,” ragged and dust-covered
to their waists. At sight of Miss Hunter, Annie exclaimed
joyously, “It's her," and together they came running to
the fence.
“Good morning,” Miss Hunter said, and remembering
she did not wish them to think there was anything
unusual in her visit, “I hope I didn't wake the boarder,"
and she smiled. “Nom'," Annie reassured her, “he ain't
come in yet. His name's Mister Brown. He brung us some
chorklate drops."
“An' he's growin' a beard. Wisht I could grow one.”
This from "Eddard.” It was his only contribution to the
conversation that morning.
Before she could ask her question, Mollie Laughlin,


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 151
her skirt pinned back, her arms red to the elbow from
recent contact with a washing board, appeared and came
smilingly over to the fence.
“Yo' come over early after the hams,” she said joy-
ously. It was not often she had a caller and Miss Hun-
ter was an excitement. “Yo' must er bin gettin' ham
horngry.”
“Yes, I am,” the lady bantered. “You must send them
over to me as soon as you can. But that is not the real
reason I am here so early. I happened to tell my friend
over there about somebody burning up a rug on my land
last night and he laughed at me, so I wanted to show him
the proof. I was looking for that long strip I saw last
night and thought one of the children might have taken
it to play with.”
Mollie Laughlin turned instantly upon her offspring.
But their emphatic denial left Miss Hunter with no
doubt as to their innocence. Then an idea occurred to
her.
“I tell you what,” she bargained, "if you or Edward,”
this to Annie who stood gaping up at her, “can find that
long strip so I may convince my friend, I will give you a
dollar for it.”
Annie's jaw fell lower and “Eddard” gazed unbelieving-
ly up at her.
“Good lan', you must be anxious not to be caught in
no lie.” It was frankness characteristic of Mollie, and Miss
Hunter laughed.
“Yes,” she said, “I have never been caught in a


152 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
lie, so if you can find the piece of rug I will pay the dol-
lar."
It was during their journey back across the fields to her
house and the waiting breakfast that the masculinity
of the gentleman, as regards sensationalism in woman, as-
serted itself.


154
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
and covered with a shining rubber cape, would wend
his way toward town. An empty day, a soggy garden,
and a vague unrest upon her spirits, which the lowering
sky did not relieve.
A restlessness was upon her, and finally Miss Hunter
settled herself with a book near the window trying to
read. But upon turning the third page of her novel and
finding she was conscious of no word she had read, she
put the book aside and drawing forth a pencil and paper,
began jotting down the facts of the tragedy of her neigh-
bors' house, beginning with that first summons from
the quiet of her front porch and ending with the missing
bit of rug she had sought to display to the District
Attorney.
Long afterward Miss Hunter, perusing her common-
place book, found the sheet of paper, yellowing yet still
with the words of impending disaster plain upon its
pages.
Here is what she had written:
Summoned by Eltinge. Find body on the floor. Hear
scraping sound above me in the hall. A muffled crash from
cellar. Lillian Appledore does not know of death. She
goes to her father on the third floor after her words re-
garding her sister threatening her own life. Mrs. Apple-
dore's story. Herbert Eltinge's story. Mr. Appledore's
story. Lillian leads me to believe something was preying
upon the dead girl's mind. Herbert Eltinge tells me of
Elizabeth's love for him. Hard to believe this. Harder
still to hear it from his lips. Acid bottle contains Phenol.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 155
The pistol is Mr. Appledore's. Mr. Herbert Eltinge in the
upper hall. The missing trunk. His message of good-
by. I talk with the District Attorney. The stolen rug is
burned at the back of my own place. The Laughlins'
boarder—and here a pencil line had been drawn through
this last, as though Miss Hunter had evidently not con-
sidered the affairs of the tow-headed Laughlins of suffi-
cient importance for her category of the death of Eliza-
beth Appledore. After it she had written. “I wonder why
I am suspicious? Why am I not content with the Coroner's
verdict? It is the correct one.” This last showed, by the
way, how possible it is for the mind to think two separate
and distinct things at complete variance with one an-
other and at the same time. And also that pencil line
through the words “The Laughlins' boarder” went to
show how near one may be to the truth and miss it alto-
gether.
The rain fell unceasingly for three days. From the
window, the hollows of her fields were filled with wet-
weather ponds, and once in the night came the faint
honking of wild geese, tempted North by the flooded
countryside.
Once, indeed, she ordered the carriage with its curtains
up and drove into town, but returned so limp and drip-
ping that she abandoned herself to the demand of the
elements.
It was on the third day, at breakfast, that the mail was
brought to her. A letter and the morning paper.
Across the corner of the former was the printed sym-


156 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
bol of a retort emitting steam, beneath which a flar-
ing lamp was burning. The steam issuing from the glass
retort formed the letters straying across the corner of
the envelope:
THE NATIONAL CHEMICAL COMPANY
STEWART, ILL.
It was the first real spark of interest she had had for
three days.
And here was the contents of the letter:
Miss Cornelia Hunter,
Harrisville, Kentucky.
Dear Madam:
Your esteemed favor at hand and contents noted. While it is
not the custom of our firm to disclose the purchases of a cus-
tomer, it is, however, within our rights to state that the gentle-
man mentioned in your letter, Mr. Herbert Eltinge, has been,
from time to time, a customer of ours. Though this gentleman
is known to us only as Dr. H. Eltinge we presume it is the
same. His address, should you care to write him, is Harrisville,
Ky., in care of General Delivery.
Any further communication regarding his purchases of
chemicals, etc., had best be referred to Dr. Eltinge himself.
Thanking you for your kind favor, and esteeming it an honor
if we may serve you in the future,
We are, Madam,
Your most obedient servants,
The National Chemical Company
Per: (And a signature which Miss Hunter had difficulty
to decipher.)


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
157
She laid the letter beside her plate and silently finished
her coffee. But she ate no breakfast. When afterward she
had gone into the parlor and seated herself by the open
window looking out into the pouring rain, she was far
from easy in her mind. Well, this much of her conjecture
was correct. Eltinge had bought the Phenol. This was
not unusual. But why had he denied all knowledge of it?
Phenol was more or less like carbolic acid, so thought
the lady, not an unusual drug to have about the house.
Its strength, however, made it unwise to use freely for
disinfecting. purposes.
She had gone to the telephone to tell her friend Mr.
Bryan of her letter when she hesitated. How little she
had to tell. Only that Doctor Eltinge had bought some
drugs. And there was no reason why he should not keep
up his interest in medicine even though he had forsaken
his calling for the more commercial one of merchandise.
"I wonder if I have been a fool?” thought the Vic-
torian lady, staring out into the misty veil of rain hid-
ing her mansion from the road.
As twilight fell, early, and grim, about her house, the
rain slackened, and putting on her rubbers and a mackin-
tosh, Miss Hunter sallied forth for a brief walk around
her garden. The walks were above water, and while she
proceeded with difficulty, it was preferable to spending
another entire day in the stuffy dampness of the house.
At the farther end of her garden she paused by the
door of the gloomy summer-house, its vines clinging to
gether a tangled wet mass in the rain.


158 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
How much had happened since she lay there in the hot
twilight with the dusky, peering face of the moon peep-
ing curiously through the entrance at her. And what
had those two been reading with so much absorption, so
low of voice she hardly caught a word? What? The mas-
ter of Appledore Towers and the young man of the
frightened eyes?
Had that anything to do with death hovering so close
above the house-only two hours away?
Drawing a sigh of weariness in the perplexity of it all
she gazed across her sodden fields to the wooded pasture
from which, due to the incessant rain, she had ordered
the mares and colts put up. Well, she was glad the blue
grass was all stripped and in the market. But the wheat
would suffer. Already it was half beaten down, lying in
sticky straw-colored masses flattened in the mud.
Miss Hunter's mind was suddenly drawn from the
state of the crops by a movement in the yard of her
neighbor. Looking over her hedge she could just see that
the back door of Appledore Towers stood open and
Abraham Isaac's wife, Dolly, stood there with a mat-
tress in her arms. The rain had begun to fall again softly,
and looking up at the sky, the woman pulled her apron
over her head and made the best of her way with her
burden to their cabin a hundred yards from the house.
“Dat's all. Yo’go on over dar befo'hit's dark an' lock
de do'.” This from Dolly to some unseen companion as
she neared their cabin. Presently Miss Hunter saw
Abraham Isaacs, a gunny sack about his shoulders, plod-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 159
ding through the mud to the back door. He drew forth
a heavy, old-fashioned key and inserting it in the lock,
turned it, then shook the knob to make sure that it was
fastened. Then, as though loathe to linger further, he put
the key in his pocket and started toward his cabin.
Perhaps it was the expression on the negro's face in
that momentary look about the gloom of gathering twi-
light in the yard that brought Miss Hunter to her de-
cision. Or perhaps it was the haste with which Dolly, his
wife, made her way indoors carrying the mattress.
“Abraham Isaacs!”
At the sound of his name the negro stopped dead in
his tracks, the whites of his eyes showing. And Miss
Hunter had the odd fancy that if she called again he
might break into a run. Then looking in her direction he
caught sight of her face above the hedge.
“Praise Gaud,” she heard him mutter, then. “Was dat
yo' call me, Mis’ Hunter?”
Her assent caused him to walk with gathering con.
fidence toward the place where she stood, yet when he
stood before her in the softly falling rain and gather-
ing dusk it was plain he was far from easy in his mind.
“Wasn't that Dolly I saw going back to your cabin
with your bed?"
“Yas 'um,” Abraham Isaacs said uneasily, “dattuz
Dolly.”
Apparently he was searching for words of explanation,
but Miss Hunter broke in kindly:
“Is everything all right in the big house?”


160 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Abraham Isaacs shook his head.
“Nom” Mis' Hunter, it's far from ain't. I don't aim
ter swerve from ma duty, but when dey comes sounds
cyrn't nobody 'splain away and tokens keep appearin'
it's time fo’ dis nigger to light out.”
“What tokens?" she demanded.
“'Tain't nothing what'd be important to white folks,
but seems like Ah kin hyr a footfall on de stair, a window
liftin' an' raisin' by hitself, an'las' night we heard a thum-
pin' an'a thud and when mornin' come Dolly got up her
courage 'nough to go into de house. Dar was one of dem
pictures of Mister Appledore's ancestors what is hung
long the wall of de staircase to de second flo', dar was one
of dem fall off de wall and done thumpin' down to de
bottom of de steps.”
“Well?”
“An' yo' knows when a picture falls offen de wall, hit's
a sign of death.”
“An open window might show something, but a fallen
picture nothing. It's more likely a token that the wire
had been allowed to rust too long,” Miss Hunter com-
forted.
But Abraham Isaacs refused to be convinced.
“An' las' night, 'fo' day, peered like we heard some-
thin'. Leastways Ah was so careful of Mars Appledore's
things I sent Dolly ter 'vestigate and presently dat gal
come lopin' back ter bed and cryin', nothin' Ah say git her
to leave hit. Onst Ah went into de hall what leads from de
pantry to de dinin' room and sho' nuf, dar was a thum-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 161
pin' and a thuddin' an' den a silence. Den a hammerin'.
Peered like somebody was first hittin' a lick up in de gar-
ret, den dey's hit er lick in de cellar.”
“Well, what did you do?” Miss Hunter demanded.
“Ah never done nothin'cept holler to dat gal to roll
over ter her side ob de baid. She ain't de onliest one what
got ter rap her haid up in a quilt when knockin's come
simultaneous from de garret an' de cellar.”
Miss Hunter bit her lip. Despite Abraham Isaacs' evi-
dent and sincere fright the thing had its elements of humor.
Allowing for the way sounds magnify themselves at
night, and the creakings of a great empty house in a
storm, the whole thing might be explained.
There had been a sound once, when, frankly, she had
been frightened out of her wits and she and Laura had sat
up till daylight because there were fancied footsteps in
their own garret. When day came and, flanked by the
coachman from the stable, they had ascended the stair,
they found that a rat had dislodged a heavy wax candle
from a shelf and in his efforts to drag it to his hole had
made the noises they had heard. So now, remembering
it, she laughed.
“So you are moving back to the cabin. I thought you
promised Mr. Appledore ".
But Abraham Isaacs shook his head, determined.
“Yas’um,Ah promised to watch er empty house an'not
one what is prodjikin round wid fallin' pictures an’
thumpin's fust. in de garret, den de cellar. Hit ain't right
to women folks ter low dem in such atmosphere. An’ Ah


162
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
feel hit's my Christian duty ter Dolly ter git her out of
dat envirament.”
“Well,” said Miss Hunter at last, reaching a sudden
decision, "if you want me to, I will go over the entire
house with you to-morrow. Or, better still, when you are
brave with the daylight go over it yourself and convince
Dolly it is best that you return."
“Yas ’um. But ef dem sounds would convince deselves
dey kin happen in de day an'not de night hit'd be differ-
ent. Ne' mind, I gwine tek care of Dolly. Ah ain't gwine
subject her to no fright. Good-night, Mis' Hunter, and
Ah sho thanks yo’ fo’ de offer.”
So saying he walked away toward the cabin where,
in the early darkness, a light was shining brightly.
From where she stood, Miss Hunter could see Dolly
moving about from bed to table hastily arranging their
abandoned home for further occupancy.
There was little possibility in her mind that the
negroes would return to the place when once they were
frightened. However, she stood there for a minute in the
rainy darkness undecided, and not till Abraham Isaacs'
figure filled the square of light did she return, deep in
thought, to the somber gloom of her own great house be-
neath the dripping trees.
Surely here was something to tell Mr. Bryan. This,
and the confirmatory letter of the Chemical Company.
But as she was going in to the lonely supper another
event was to happen—and one more worthy of that
gentleman's attention.


LA AT GAY NINETIES MURDER 163
Down the long back porch she heard the faint pat-
ter of litt'e bare feet, then a rattling of the knob and a
childish, piping voice.
“Mis' Hunter, aw, Mis' Hunter!”
Opening the door herself she beheld in the light from
the hanging lamp “Eddard” Laughlin, an old coat over
his head, his ragged trousers flapping and wet above his
muddy little legs. His tow hair was dripping and clung
to his forehead, but his blue eyes burned determinedly.
“Mis' Hunter,” he gasped for shyness, “here 'tis."
“Edward,” she exclaimed, "you haven't run all the
way over here in the dark and rain?”
“Yas’um,” he piped. Then reaching shyly inside his
little waist, clinging wetly to his thin body, he drew forth
the charred mass of the missing bit of carpet.
“Here's 'at air piece of rug yo' wanted, Mis' Hunter.
I foun' it under the mattress of the boarder's bed.”
“You found it where?” she exclaimed.
“Yas ’um, I looked everywhere else an’ little while
ago, just after he went out, I went an' looked and there
it was. Guess he hid it from us. Maybe he knowed you'd
give a dollar to the one that found it.”
While Laura was getting Miss Hunter's purse and she
presenting the promised dollar, the child's shyness re-
turned and she could get him to say nothing further.
And again the necessity of her not arousing suspicion
occurred to her.
When she had sent one of the grooms home with him,
carrying a lantern, and sat herself down at her belated


164 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
supper, she tried to think things out. “What things?”
she kept saying to herself.
“Who was the Laughlin's boarder? Had he stolen the
rug? And if so, why had he burned it? And if he had
burned it why had he wanted to preserve the charred
strip?”
With no more appetite for her supper than for the
midday dinner, Miss Hunter rose finally and went out on
the porch where, with a shawl about her, she sat looking
out into the dripping darkness at the renewing storm.


Chapter XVIII
Miss CORNELIA HUNTER was early at the telephone next
day. A certain reticence held her, however, in repeatedly
recounting her fancies to the practical mind of the Dis-
trict Attorney, yet surely with Edward's discovery of
the charred bit of rug between the mattress of their
boarder's bed here was something concrete.
This, at least, was not her fancy. But if the boarder,
whoever he might be, was the thief who had stolen the
rug and then destroyed it, why had he wished to preserve
the charred strip so carefully? And why had he come
to board with the Laughlins? It would be a comparatively
easy matter to question him, and yet a thief would not
get a job night watching at a quarry and steal a rug and
burn it up and remain where he might be apprehended.
The whole thing was so utterly perplexing that Miss
Hunter was faintly irritated when no answer came to
her repeated ringings. Finally a voice answered, that of
the young lady who did Mr. Bryan's typing for him.
“No, the District Attorney was not in town. He had
been summoned to Louisville on business and would not,”
she thought, “be back for several days. Yes, she would
have him call Miss Hunter.”
When she replaced the receiver she stood for some mo-
a business an
lave him come back for
165


166
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
ments in deepest thought. This habit of detection, of
interesting herself so vitally in the affairs of her neighbor,
was too recent for hasty action and she felt entirely at a
loss without the counsel of Mr. Bryan.
It has been said somewhere in these pages that Miss
Hunter was not a lady who did things quickly, and per-
haps that is the reason that it was well toward noon
before she arrived at a decision.
Yes, it was possible, if she wrote a letter to Mrs. Apple-
dore at the address given her by Mr. Eltinge, it might
reach her, or be forwarded at least. And so at noon she
seated herself at her desk:
My dearest Constance:
It is with the deepest regret that I inflict a small matter
of anxiety upon you, who already have so much. But I
cannot be at peace until I inform you of conditions at Apple-
dore Towers. Your servants, Abraham Isaacs and his wife,
Dolly, have abandoned their post of watching and have re-
turned to their cabin. I recognize your desire to have the
house remain as you left it, and so shall in no way trespass
upon your wishes. The servants' reason for leaving, so Abra-
ham Isaacs informs me, was due to the fact they thought they
heard noises in the cellar. Now knowing this might be, most
surely was, their imagination and how easily frightened
negroes are, I did my best to urge them to remain where you
had placed them. If it will be of any comfort to you I will go
over the entire house at any time, yet again, respecting your
wish that it remain closed, shall take no step without your
sanction.
Forgive me again, dearest Constance, and I beg that this
trivial happening will not cause you any deep sense of worry,


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
167
and know always how my heart follows you in loving sym-
pathy through the stages of your journey.
I am, as always, ever lovingly thine,
Cornelia Hunter.
This letter, carefully written, was reread several times
before Miss Hunter finally rang for Laura and bade her
send it into the mail at once.
She had grave misgivings as to annoying her friend,
who had already so much to bear, yet such was Miss
Hunter's sense of duty that she would not have slept
until she had described the conditions.
“Suppose I were in her place?” she counseled herself,
"and Constance had not notified me, how would I feel?”
Having taken this step, it was characteristic of the lady
to see the matter through. So, not waiting even for her
hat, she crossed her garden and called to Abraham Isaacs
who was mowing the lawn.
"I have written Mrs. Appledore, Abraham,” she said
severely, “and while I am sorry to bring blame upon
you and Dolly, I am deeply grieved that you should be
so unfaithful to a trust. Further, I have offered to go over
the house with you and set at rest these fears which are
so groundless."
Abraham Isaacs, much abashed, looked down at the
grass.
“Ah done took it to de Lord in prayer,” he said finally,
“Ah done work fo' Mister Appledore nigh on to twenty
year now, but ef hit's choosin' 'tween de place and bein'
run ter deaf by er hant, we's 'bleeged to go.”


168
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“You will do nothing so foolish,” Miss Hunter snapped.
She was a little uneasy at her own part in the affair, this
taking so much authority. “I will explain to your mas-
ter,” people still said master and man those days; “now
won't you be sensible and sleep in the house again to-
night?”
Abraham Isaacs seemed turning over the matter in his
mind. Finally he said in an uncertain voice,
“Ef yo' puts hit as a matter of pussonal responsibility
I'll try settin' dar. But 'tain't nothin' dis side ob de devil
gwine mek me stretch out in de baid, Mis' Hunter."
“Well, sit up then. One night will do you no harm,
and after that I am sure your fears will be relieved and
you and Dolly can return and carry out your duty. If
you will do this I will be willing to send your mistress a
dispatch asking that she disregard my letter.”
“Yas'm, I'll try hit,” Abraham said unhappily, “but
hit's one thing ter stand hyr in de bressid light ob day and
tell yo' I gwine set dar, an'annuder ter go in dat house
after hit's dark.”
“Then leave a lamp burning. That will do no harm.
And leave the back door open if you are afraid. I'll wager
before you know it you will be asleep and it will be day-
light again and nothing has happened.”
“Is der danger ob me drappin' off ter sleep like dat wid
some nur prowlin' round de house?” Abraham Isaacs'
eyes bulged.
Miss Hunter's laugh comforted him.
“Well, Ah gwine see 'bout hit,” was all the promise she


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
169
could ring from him. “Las' night Ah dreamed dar was a
pair of clamby col' han's clutchin' round my throat.
An' dat's er sign ob somethin' an' it ain't no comfort ter
me not knowin' what it fo’tells.”
As twilight fell, dewy and still about the place, Miss
Hunter, at her window, saw Abraham Isaacs crossing the
yard from his cabin carrying a lamp in one hand and his
Bible in the other. Behind him, quite close, in fact, his
faithful Dolly followed with a poker. And later in the
night, before she went to her room, she walked about the
garden looking up at the dreamy, blinking stars ás was
her custom. From the back door of her neighbors' house
a yellow light shone out upon the grass and pausing at the
hedge she could hear the sonorous voice of Abraham
Isaacs reading aloud to his faithful Dolly
“De Lord is ma Shepherd, I shall not want
“He maketh me ter lie down in de green pastures-
Through the starlight, past the band of light straying
across the grass, her eyes traveled to the clump of cedars
enclosing the family graveyard.
“Well, she is lying in green pastures,” thought the lady,
and for some minutes stood looking at the clump of trees;
then putting up her hand, felt a tear rolling down her
cheek.
“Poor child. Poor child," she murmured, going toward
her house.
At two o'clock Miss Hunter was awakened by a yell.
It came from the direction of her neighbors' house, and
springing out of her bed she ran to her window.


170
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Across the lawn, and through her hedge, she saw the
fleeing figures of the negroes, Abraham and his wife.
He was carrying the smoky, flickering lamp in one hand
and in the other the Bible hung flapping fiercely in the
wind. His Dolly was close behind him and even at that
distance Miss Hunter heard their frightened breaths.
The waning moon had risen and by its light she could
see the fleeing figures.
Flinging on her wrapper she quickly descended the
stairs and was on the porch when they arrived, panting
and breathless. Dolly, at sight of her, flung herself down
on the bottom step drawing the skirt of her dress over
her head. Abraham Isaacs, the shaking lamp in his hand,
tottered up to her.
“We heard hit again, Mis’ Hunter. Ef hit hadn't been
fo' Dolly bein' so skert Ah might have gone and ’vesti-
gated "
The poor soul was so shaken by his fright that Miss
Hunter bade him set the lamp on the step and catch his
breath.
"O Jesus save ma soul,” moaned Dolly, rocking back
and forth below them.
“Be quiet!” Miss Hunter commanded. “Now, Abra-
ham, tell me what you saw!"
“Ah neber saw nothin', Mis’ Hunter. Hearin' hit was
nuf. Hit's de same as night 'fo' last. Ah mus' have drap
off ter sleep like you say and Dolly was restin' hersef in
er cheer and fust thing Ah knowed dar was a mighty
thumpin' on my head an' I lean over half ersleep an' hit


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
171
out at Dolly an' tell her ter stop kickin' on the baid post,
an' den de thumpin' come louder an’I recognize we warn't
in no baid but settin' in de kitchen of dat house. An'
Dolly woke up den an’ we bof set listenin' an' sho' nuf
fust from de cellar, den look like from de garret, hit'd
come. Ker whack! ker whack! Jes’ like somebody nur
was poundin' wid a rock.
"Dolly wasn't awake good an’she laid out wid de poker
an' hit me across de haid an' I let out er yell cause hit
seem like somebody don 'tacked me from behin'. An'
all ob a sudden de sound stop when I holler, den me an'
Dolly lit out for you.”
“Ma Jesus sabe me!" moaned Dolly from below.
“Mis’ Hunter, in de name o' Gaud, don't ast we alls
ter go in dat house ergin.”
Laura, hearing the confusion, had come down the stairs
and finally succeeded in quieting the hysterical Dolly.
It was a weird group there beneath the stately columns
of Miss Hunter's porch.
The tiny lamp, its chimney smoked and clouded by its
rapid passage through the night; Miss Hunter stately
and trying to quiet the excited voices; Dolly and Laura
huddled on the lower step.
"No," the lady of the house announced at last. “You
shall not be asked to go into the house again. Now come
with Laura and she will find somewhere for you to sleep.
You may stay here to-night. To-morrow I will take it
upon myself to get someone and go through the house
and get at the bottom of this matter."


172
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
It was a shaken little company, led by Miss Hunter,
that reëntered her hall.
“Fo' Gaud's sake, Mis' Hunter, lock dat do'.” This
from the sniffling Dolly. “Dat ar what eber hit was is
likely ter come lopin' throo de garden and strangle we
all. Wisht Ah could git a han’ful ob ashes an' sprinkle
round whar Ah gwine ter sleep. Cyrnt no hant git pas'
de ashes, least dat's what Ah hear 'um say.”
But before Miss Hunter was called upon for a deci-
sion the person she most wanted came to her aid.
Early next morning the District Attorney rang the
phone, telling her he had been notified that she had
called him during his absence.
“Any new developments, Chief of Detectives?” he
asked.
But Miss Hunter's reply, after bidding him come to
breakfast, was something about "Jestings which were
not convenient.” She was beginning to quote the Bible
herself.


Chapter XIX
60
“It is becoming a habit, Cornelia,” said the District
Attorney, when Miss Hunter greeted him upon her front
steps in the fresh beauty of the following morning,
“this calling upon you at daylight!”.
“Well, you could do worse,” his hostess challenged
smilingly. “The air is splendid, and before all those stuffy
hours in your office come, confess, aren't half those
books bound in calf and with their frightful legal titles
'Trilby,' 'The Quick or the Dead?' and so forth? I
once knew a lawyer who did that.”
Cornelia Hunter was charming when in this mood.
And it suddenly came to the mind of the District At-
torney that here was a fresher beauty, rivaling in deli-
ciousness the beauty of the morning. From somewhere,
while he put his panama on the hall table and followed
her back to the dining room, he remembered the early
romance of the lady's youth, and frowned. Then he
sighed. Yes, that was a day of sentiment, of belief in
broken, lasting heartache.
“I wonder if she'll ever get over it?” he mused as he
seated himself across from her at the table. In the great
cool dining room with its landscape paper brought from
France by Miss Hunter's great-grandfather in the early
173


174 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
thirties was the fragrance of coffee, and that dim, indis-
tinguishable odor of broiling steak and buckwheat cakes.
The South never quite relinquished its hold upon so
heavy a breakfast, even in mid-summer.
While he was thinking that the golden brown of the
coffee flowing from the silver urn to the whiteness of his
cup was no less brown nor white than Miss Hunter's
hair and brow-it was a masculine comparison of a
hungry man-Miss Hunter raised her eyes and their cor-
ners crinkled in amusement.
She was becoming used to the anxiety of mystery about
her and with her co-conspirator's return there was a
growing confidence.
“Most plotters in mystery meet in those hours of dark-
ness, while we prefer the sunrise,” she said, handing him
the cup in great spirits. “But I have known my hours
of darkness since you have been away,” she finished
gayly.
Then, while Laura was taking away his gouged canta-
loupe, she told him in detail of the excitement of the
night before, beginning with little Edward's returning
the strip of burned rug for the promised dollar and telling
where he found it, under the mattress of the boarder's
bed, also the leaving of the house by Abraham Isaacs
and Dolly and their unexpected arrival as overnight
guests at past two in the morning.
When Mr. Bryan had finished his coffee, he leaned back
in his chair.
“Might be their wine-cellar," he said after a while.


176 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
ture and together we poked about in the ashes. The
boarder may or may not have seen us doing this. Yet there
is one thing certain, Mollie Laughlin never kept a secret
in her life. And it is only possible with her narrow vision
that your visit may have caused considerable excite-
ment in the household. I am afraid the boarder, who-
ever he may be, knows all about our interest in the rug.”
The District Attorney scowled.
“You don't know this, do you?”
The lady shook her head.
“But I know my neighbor, Mollie,” she answered.
“Well, there is the chance that little Edward has not
told his mother that he found the strip of rug. Yours
was probably the first dollar he ever possessed in his life,
and he may have kept it secret. Certainly if his mother
knew, she would confiscate it soon enough. The only
thing I can see is for you to make another journey to the
Laughlins, talk to the woman alone, and impress upon
her the necessity of silence.”
“It's easy enough to plan. But if you knew that class
as I do, Mollie would be frightened out of her wits if she
thought suspicion rested on her boarder.”
“We do not say he is the thief,” the lawyer parried,
“and it seems to me our first duty is to take the bull by
the horns, as it were, and directly after breakfast go over
to Appledore Towers, demand that Abraham Isaacs open
every shutter in the house, and search the place from gar-
ret to cellar.”
Miss Hunter interrupted by again reminding him of


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 177
the message from Mr. Herbert Eltinge regarding Mrs.
Appledore's wish that the house should not be entered,
and finished with an account of her letter to her friend
containing her offer that she go over the house and learn
the extent of the disturbance.
The District Attorney had finished his beefsteak and
a second helping of cakes and now leaned back in his
chair, content and confident.
“I'll take the responsibility,” he assured her briefly.
“After we have gone over the house it might be as well
to make the trip to the wooded pasture and secure
Mollie Laughlin's silence.”
It was not Miss Hunter's custom to have the servants
remain in the dining room during meals, and leaning for-
ward, Mr. Bryan noticed again how white her hands were
as she tinkled the little silver bell by her plate.
“Laura,” she said when the girl appeared, "tell Abra-
ham Isaacs and Dolly that as soon as they have had
their breakfast I wish to speak to them in the library.”
“Yas ’um,” the girl said, “dey's done had brekfus an’
will come in dar torrectly. Hyr's de mail, Miss Cornelia.”
Handing her mistress some letters and the morning
paper, she left the room.
On the way to the library the lady proffered the morn-
ing paper to her companion, and excusing herself, sat by
an open window and opened her letters.
She wore a muslin of white ground with sprigs of lilac
scattered over it and there were lavender ribbons at her
throat. Her slender white arms gleamed through its crisp


178
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
sleeves and in the coil of her hair twisted into a Psyche
knot at the back of her head was the tortoise-shell comb
which had belonged to her mother.
It is doubtful that morning, while she sat there in
the pale sunlight filtering through the whispering maple
leaves, if the District Attorney was entirely absorbed in
the stilted articles of the morning paper. Presently an
exclamation from the lady caused him to look up and lay
it aside.
“Listen to this,” she said abruptly. She was perusing
a letter written in an upright hand which, from a distance,
resembled miniature telegraph poles across the lavender
page.
“Do you remember Cathrine Chamberlain? We went
to school together at Hollins Institute. She lives in
Woodstock, Ohio, now, and she has met the Appledores
by chance on their way to the lake. It must have been
the second day of their journey.
“Dearest Cornelia:
"I was shocked and grieved beyond all measure to read of
the death of Elizabeth Appledore, knowing they were your
friends and next-door neighbors. I should have written Con-
stance Appledore long before this but not knowing her as well
as you do, I hesitated to intrude upon so heavy a sorrow.
Imagine my surprise then, on meeting them face to face on
the street here! They were in a travel-stained carriage and
Mr. Appledore explained their journey to the lake.
“Of course I asked them to be my guests over night and
offered every consolation in my power. The offer, however,
was refused. They explained, if you please, that they were


180 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
true to form. Come, now, Cornelia, don't get mystery on
the brain. You said yourself Constance Appledore was
given to powdering her face. Well, it's not one of the
seven deadly sins. My grandmother used to look like
she'd fallen into the flour barrel before she came to
breakfast. And really there is no explaining the workings
of a mind as stricken as Constance Appledore's. Back
somewhere in her head she may think the make-up, I
believe that is the term, might keep her from being
recognized. She, however, failed to reckon on the sharp
eyes of Cathrine Chamberlain seeing through her poor
little disguise. I'll wager if we had Miss Chamberlain
here she'd have been from top to bottom of the Appledore
house before breakfast.”
The lawyer's harangue upon the feminine insight of the
absent Miss Chamberlain was cut short here by the
appearance at the door of Abraham Isaacs and Dolly,
followed by Laura, who, having shared in their adventure
of the night before, had no idea of missing the interview.
Or perhaps she felt toward Miss Hunter's protection
as that lady felt toward the District Attorney's.
“Well, Abraham,” Mr. Bryan smiled, “I hear you
have been having ghosts across the way.”.
Dolly's eyes began to bulge. And Miss Hunter saw her
jerk at Abraham Isaacs' coat tail.
“Tain't no hant.” This from Dolly. She had been
Elizabeth Appledore's personal maid and her defense was
touching to Miss Hunter.
“Dat chile ain't never comin' back to de house," she


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
181
said with conviction. “Ah kin tell. She done gone clean
away from hyr. 'Sides, what dat po' chile want prod-
jikin' round dat house whar she met her def?”
Abraham Isaacs tried to silence her but her emotions
were rising.
“Ef hit had ben somebody er nur what was stingy an'
watchin' arter things dey 'ud come back, but dat chile
was de givin' awayest pusson Ah eber seed. Dat why Ah
cyrn't understan' how cum Mis’ Appledo' neber gib
er way her clothes. When dat lamb was erlive she gib
me mos' everything Ah ware. No, suh," and Dolly sub-
sided into a mutter of resentment. “'Tain't dat chile what
come back from de grabe skerin' de liverlights outen us.”
"Abraham," the Attorney said, pulling himself up in
his chair. “Tell me about these disturbances over in the
house."
“Yas, suh!" the old man said with conviction. “Hit's
worser than er disturbance. An' ef Ah could have got
some courage into Dolly what claims dey ain't no hants,
Ah would have 'sprised dem wid my pusson. But when
wimmin folks teks er notion ter run, cyrn't no hant ketch
up wid um an' it's my duty ter follow an' see dey gits
out ob danger. Yas, suh.” This with a determined jerk
of his head.
“Miss Hunter say ef we watch through de night she
gwine telegraph master not to pay no pendence ter her
letter sayin' we all's unfaithful ter our duty. Fo’ Gaud's
sake, Marster, ast her ter sen' dat telegram. Ab done
work fo' Marster twenty year-"


182 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“That'll be all right, Abraham,” the lawyer comforted,
“I will see to it you are not discharged. I will take the
responsibility and I am Mr. Appledore's legal adviser."
“Ah hopes ter Gaud yo’’vises him den,” the poor soul
muttered.
The District Attorney rose.
“What we are going to do now is go over the house
from garret to cellar—Miss Hunter and l-and if there
has been any evidence of a disturbance in the night we
will put a watchman there. Have you got the keys?”
The old negro blanched.
“Yas, suh, Ah got de keys. Is we all 'bleeged to go all
over dat house?”
The lawyer nodded.
“You may do it with safety this time. Come, it's broad
daylight, and afterwards I will write Mr. Appledore my-
self. They ought to have reached the end of their jour-
ney by now.”
So again behold a procession across the garden—that
garden which had always stood for shimmering heat or
dewy coolness, for rest from days of labor-for perfume,
stillness, and resurrection-and not, as in recent days, a
roadway to disaster.
“Ah got all de keys 'cept one. Dat one ter de room whar
Mis’ ’Lizabeth died. Mis' Appledore don'took dat herse'f
an’ say mos' spressly she don' want nobody ter go in dar
till she get back.”
“Yas ’um,” it was the first time Dolly had spoken since
her defense of the dead girl's spirit. “She say dat room all


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
183
she got lef ob her chile an' she don't want we all ter eben
dus' it till she gits back ter do hit wif her own hands."
“Well, we needn't go in that room,” Mr. Bryant said
comfortingly. “I take it you have the key to the back
door and we will enter there. I want you and Dolly to go
with us and open all the shutters and we will get at the
bottom of this thing.”
Miss Hunter laughed softly and the District Attorney
pressed her arm.
“I don't believe there will be much trouble in finding
the back door open. Last night the watchers left in some-
what of a hurry.”
“Yas ’um, we was sho in haste,” Old Abraham Isaacs
said humbly, as turning the corner of the great stone
house they went up the steps in single file to where the
back door stood open in the increasing heat of that
summer day,


Chapter Xx
It is well, important, that we follow closely the foot-
steps of the little party, Mr. Bryan, Miss Cornelia, her
Laura, Abraham Isaacs and his wife that day. For on
small events are greater moments hung, and those thirty
minutes consumed in passing through the dim stretches
of Appledore Towers were ones which were to leave their
mark upon their lives.
Into the kitchen, reached by steps from the yard, the
sunlight streamed cheerfully. The shutters were back
and the window open. Plainly, in their vigil, Abraham
Isaacs and Dolly had left no emergency exit closed.
Passing through the pantry, thence to the darkened
dining room, Abraham was bidden open the shutters. The
room showed nothing. A film of dust was already gather-
ing over the bare stretch of mahogany, the sideboard
stood gaunt and empty, following the hurried storing of
the silver. How many brilliant dinners Miss Hunter had
seen there, the delicate beauty of the two girls, the stately
dignity of their mother, always so richly gowned, the
courtly hospitality of their father. Well, that was all
buried in the past, so thought the lady, drawing a deep
sigh. The library, when the morning sun shone past its
windows, was equally free of disturbance, and across the
hall—Abraham Isaacs let Miss Hunter and the District
184


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 189
explorer, this time toward them, commenced. His face
was covered with skeins of cobweb and his immaculate
linen suit might have been worn by an engine driver.
When he could stand to his full height he handed the can-
dle to Abraham and bent over, dusting off his trousers.
But his eyes had met Miss Hunter's in that moment and
her heart quickened. It was plain that while the negroes
were not to share his discovery the journey over
the splintery rafters had not been in vain. “We'll look
at that empty room where they used to work on ac-
counts,” he announced cheerfully, as, led by Abraham,
they returned to the upper hall.
Once inside this room the District Attorney bade the
negroes wait outside and Miss Hunter showed him the
uneven scratches over the surface of the floor. He ex-
amined them intently.
“What did you find in the garret?” the lady asked
when the door was closed.
Her companion looked at her quizzically.
“This,” he said, pointing to the floor.
Miss Hunter stared.
“These scratches. The same marks are up there, at the
edge of the rafters of the opening leading to the cellar.
There is, as Abraham says, a considerable space left
by some discrepancy in the original plans of the house.
Now someone, whoever it was, had dragged a heavy
object, an object which cut into the floor in their haste,
from this room through the hall. At the hall door the
marks disappear, from which we may draw the conclu-


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
191
was spoken. At the door leading to the curved stone steps
Mr. Bryan demanded a lighted lamp and Dolly brought it
to him.
“Yo' better carry dem candles wid yo', suh.”
Old Abraham, brave now with the daylight, came for-
ward.
“Does yo' want me ter 'company yo', suh?” he asked.
The District Attorney shook his head.
“Miss Hunter and I will go down alone,” he said cheer-
fully. “If we need you, stay at the top of the stairs and
we will call.”
Miss Hunter gathered her lawn skirts about her and
preceded by the Attorney descended into the damp smell
of the cellar.
At the foot of the stairs they stood looking about and
for some moments the Attorney waited.
"I must get my bearings,” he said after a minute, then,
“where would be the center of the hall above?"
Miss Hunter pointed to a furnace in the middle of the
cellar, explaining that it stood in the middle of the build-
ing.
“Then it ought to be fairly easy,” he said presently.
“The library would be there, the two girls' rooms above,
and over those the empty room. Now I crawled in this
direction when I was in the garret-hello!”
His exclamation brought Miss Hunter to his side.
Holding his lamp close to the earth floor, the District
Attorney pointed. Stretching before them and plainly
not many hours old were the clear footprints of a man.


Chapter XXI
S.
LAURA departed to see about the midday dinner and
bidding Abraham Isaacs close the back part of the house,
Miss Hunter, followed by the District Attorney, returned
through the lady's garden.
They were silent for most of the short walk, but now
the gentleman did not joke at Miss Hunter's instincts as
a detective, nor speak lightly of the intruder at Apple-
dore Towers.
Once in heavy thought, he scooped the heads of some
poppies blooming in pink and white profusion along the
walks and his companion winced, and once, while he
plucked the flowers to pieces, his brow was heavily
furrowed.
"I tell you, Cornelia,” his voice was suddenly intent,
“I do not like it.” There was a pause before she answered
and meanwhile she placed herself between him and her
flowers.
“I have not found it exactly amusing,” she ventured.
“But tell me exactly what it is you do not like."
The District Attorney tossed away the remaining bits
of flowers and dusted the pollen from his hands.
"Oddly enough,” he said quizzically, “it is your reac-
tion which disturbs me.”
195


198 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
is a not the Atto ng their com
The conclusion we may draw from that is obvious. The
stranger, whoever he is, has some motive sufficient to
risk rousing the watchers with his digging, to pierce the
wall and secure what is lying beyond.”
Their discussion was ended here by Laura's announc-
ing dinner and during the meal little was said of their
afternoon excursion.
“It will be hot,” Miss Hunter said once, looking past
the bowed window shutters to the strip of dazzling green
in the yard.
While they were having their coffee in the dim coolness
of the parlor the Attorney ventured: “Do you think
there is a possibility that Mollie Laughlin could be a
confederate of this mysterious stranger who is boarding
with her?"
"Not the slightest," the lady shook her brown head.
“Mollie has not sense enough to be a confederate of any-
one, even her husband. If he had confided in her that he
was ‘up to something,' as she would put it, she would
have been frightened out of her wits and probably come
running across the fields a minute afterward to tell me
the whole thing. And it is this complete trust that makes
me hope to secure her silence, temporarily at least, when
we try to get a glimpse of her boarder.”
"Well,” Mr. Bryan rejoined, rising to knock the ash
of his cigar into a jug of St. John lilies, unrebuked, and
while Miss Hunter substituted an ash tray—“Well, we
will have to take a chance. How about it?"
The lady rose.


204 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
full week's growth of beard on the face turned toward
the ceiling, and plainly the countenance had been un-
washed for some time.
He was sleeping heavily, and in the dead stillness of the
room, mingled with the breathing of the Attorney, over the
dusty floor of the attic, Miss Hunter could hear the sleep-
er's breathing also.
Yet the face, stained with grease and dirt, covered
with its growth of beard, was one she had never seen
before.
Now if Miss Hunter was disappointed, if she had ex-
pected to recognize the sleeper, she was, in a measure,
later to be rewarded for her journey through the fields
on the sweltering July day.
When Mollie had been again caut oned to say nothing
of their visit, she and the District Attorney started once
more across the fields. Halfway home through the pas-
ture, two little figures appeared trudging toward them
in the sunlight and the shadow. They were Annie Laugh-
lin and her brother Edward.
At sight of the stately lady and gentleman coming
toward them Edward was seen to start running toward
them.
Miss Hunter smiled a welcome, for more than ever now
did she wish there to be nothing unusual in her visit
through the fields. Yet Edward was suddenly shy before
the tall gentleman accompanying her. He dropped his
head and digging a toe into the sod said, deep in his
throat:


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
205
“Mis' Hunter, I'll giv' you er dollar an' eh half for
that air piece of rug you bought ofen me fer a dollar.”
“What!” and the lady bent down, confused.
“Yas 'um, I'll pay hit. Our boarder, las' night, said he
gib me a ten-dollar bill ef I could fin' it for him," piped
Edward.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 207
said, watching him with amused eyes, “and since we wo-
men, Annie and I, must now rely on our own judgment,
will you kindly tell me what we are supposed to do next?”
Mr. Bryan was thoughtful.
“I can't help thinking,” and though they were a mile
from the house he lowered his voice, “I can't help think-
ing that that, whatever 'that’ may be, will be done for
you.”
Miss Hunter raised her lashes, her eyes deep with
questioning.
“You think something will happen shortly?" she
asked.
“Most certainly,” her companion assented. He had
found an early walnut, small and hard and round; crush-
ing it with his heel its pungent odor crept out into the
hot air.
"Now here is my plan. When we arrive at your house
I want to send word to Abraham Isaacs that I will watch
in the cellar to-night; that he may sit in the kitchen
within call should I need him. It is imperative that no
one know I am doing this. If you will watch with me, so
much the better. Do you know," and his eyes took on a
deeper look as they watched the sunlit fields, “it may turn
out to be a case of identification.”
If Miss Hunter was startled by this expression of
opinion she was becoming accustomed to surprises.
“Of course I will watch with you,” she replied. “In fact,
I confess I feel ten years younger since this interest came
into my life.”


208 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“Do you know,” the gentleman said after a longer con-
templation of the sunny landscape, "we are taking some-
thing of a chance in relying on Mollie Laughlin's not tell-
ing her boarder of our visit. It might have unpleasant
complications should he discover our interest—especially
if we are right in thinking he has some connection with
the affairs of Appledore Towers.”
“Yes,” his companion agreed. “But I have great faith
in your five dollars. Money means more to Mollie than
anything else, poor thing."
“By the way,” Mr. Bryan remarked when again they
were walking homeward. “You have had no word from
Mrs. Appledore since her arrival at the lake?”
The lady shook her head.
“No, but then I did not expect to. I suppose poor Lillian
has so much to do in caring for her mother and getting
her settled for the summer, and Constance never writes
letters. They have only been there a few days."
“Well,” the lawyer answered, “when you receive an
answer from your letter recounting Abraham Isaacs'
faithlessness let me know what they say. In a way I
am curious to know how your observation was received."
But this letter, whether filled with thanks for her watch-
fulness, or announcing complete faith in her servants,
was never to be received. In fact, another communica-
tion was to reach them from the travelers, a communica-
tion which was to sweep all thoughts, in its tragic import,
of that other letter from their minds.
The blazing sun hung, a hot ball, toward the west


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 209
when again they passed through the slave graveyard.
They were in no hurry and the District Attorney, despite
the heat, had found the time alone with Miss Hunter
vastly satisfying. Once when under the deep shade of
the clump of trees he insisted that they rest again, and
once he went over to a glistening pool of umbrella-like
plants reflecting the sun like burnished emeralds, and
brought her a late May apple, its waxy flower spilling
into the hot air the heavy odor of death.
The District Attorney was in the midst of his plan
for returning to town and later coming again to Miss
Hunter's house, when from far across the field sepa-
rating them from the stable Miss Hunter heard a
familiar call.
“Mis' Cornelia! Awh, Mis' Cor-ne-lia!”
The voice was shrill and far away. The dreamy quiet
of midday had passed. In a distant field was a slowly
plodding team of horses drawing the mower, its faint
rattle and clack of blades among the already purpling
iron-weeds.
A white-clad figure was standing at the gate leading
into the stable yard and it was she who was calling.
“Mis' Cornelia!”
The voice was that of her colored maid, Laura.
When the woman caught sight of them approaching
she opened the gate and flinging her white apron over her
head, came running toward them through the heat.
“What is it, Laura?” her mistress called, quickening
her own pace.


210 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Her servant was almost out of breath when she reached
them and panting so it was some moments before she
could be understood.
“You ought not to run when it is so hot, Laura, get
your breath and tell me what has happened.”
“It's dat phome," the woman gasped finally, her hand
at her side, beads of perspiration standing on her yellow
forehead. “Dey's bin callin' yo' from de telegraph office
an' say dey cyn't gib de message to nobody 'cept yo'.
Ah tells 'um yo goen out on de place an' Ah kin tek it
down fo' you. But dey say”—and here her quick breath-
ing mastered her—"dey say hit's er death message!"
Laura's eyes, characteristic of her class, were bulging
with fright as Miss Hunter quickened her steps toward
the house.
“Did they say where it was from?" she demanded.
“Try and tell me, Laura."
“No'm, dey wouldn't tell me nuffin'. Jes’ say ter git hol'
ob yo' an' git yo'to de phome as quick as Ah could.”
Neither the District Attorney nor his companion spoke
on the rest of the way to the house. Once Laura, gasping
behind them, burst out with:
“Ah 'clair since dat done happen ober at Mis' Apple-
dore's we ain't knowed a peaceful minute. Seems like
dey 'volves us in whateber is gwine on.”
It is just possible that the same thought, back some-
where in the negress's brain, was in the minds of Miss
Hunter and the District Attorney when they entered the
cool stretch of hall and the lady, closing her sunshade,


212
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
It said " and here her face grew scarlet, was dis-
torted into a convulsion of pain, tears swelling into her
eyes. She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, sinking
back limp and helpless into a great chair.
“It said— Constance Appledore has drowned herself
in the lake!!"


Chapter XXIII
THE room was very still. From down the avenue on the
turnpike came the sluggish flop, flop of a horse's feet
flung wearily upon the limestone road and the rattle of
spokes as some ancient carriage was drawn homeward
from the town. A tiny dart of shadow fled over the sun-
light on the carpet as a bird flew past the window. From
somewhere back in the house Laura's voice was heard
calling to the coachman-his answering, and her hur-
ried message regarding the telegram.
“Tell me please exactly what has happened.” The
Attorney's voice was suddenly harsh.
For a minute the lady, broken and weeping there in
the depths of the big chair, was unable to speak. She
was shaking silently, her hands covering her eyes.
"Her—it said O h, poor, poor Constance! I ought to
have gone with her. Oh, I ought to have gone. I should
not have let her go away like that with her sorrow and
her memories."
Mr. Bryan gently took the lady's hand.
“You have nothing with which to reproach yourself,"
he said quietly. “Try to calm yourself and tell me ex-
actly what the dispatch said.”
“It was very long,” the lady gasped, “I cannot repeat
213


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 215
man did. When he turned from the telephone, through
the open door he saw Miss Hunter's coachman riding
into the yard, and going out bareheaded he received into
his hands the yellow envelope bearing its heavy message.
And together, standing on the steps of the porch as
the coachman led the panting horse to the stable, they
read the message.
It was dated that morning from the resort to which
the travelers had gone.
Miss Hunter, her moist handkerchief pressed to her
face, her eyes shining through unshed tears, read slowly
aloud the following:
“Lake City, Michigan.
"DISCOVERED LETTER FROM CONSTANCE STATING SHE HAD
TAKEN HER LIFE BY DROWNING. MISSING SINCE LAST NIGHT.
ALL EFFORTS TO RECOVER BODY TO DATE FUTILE. WILL KEEP
YOU ADVISED BY WIRE OF DEVELOPMENTS. BE PREPARED TO
MEET US ON RETURN
“ALGERNON APPLEDORE.”
Miss Hunter read these words through unshed tears,
her hand clasping her damp handkerchief pressed to
her face. When she had finished she handed the message
to the District Attorney, who reread it slowly then
handed it back to her. After a moment he led her up
the steps and into the parlor.
“You must not let this get the best of you, Cornelia,"
and his voice was stern with sympathy. “If you want me,
I will accompany you to-night.”


216 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“No,” the lady replied evenly, “I think it best to
go alone. Laura will be with me and I must comfort
Lillian. Oh, poor child! That she should have this to bear
with the loss of her sister.”
At times like these in the lives of gentlefolk words go
for little and Mr. Bryan, leaving the lady to recover her-
self, went out to the stable to order the carriage for ten
o'clock that night. The rest of the afternoon passed in
answering calls by telephone, for the import of the mes-
sage had leaked out and by night the town was teeming
with excitement. His plan for returning to town and re-
appearing at Miss Hunter's later in the evening was
abandoned, and the remaining hours he spent near the
telephone and doing what he could toward relieving
Miss Hunter, sadly shaken by her message.
At seven o'clock Laura appeared, dressed for her jour-
ney, to say that supper was on the table and Miss Hun-
ter, white and calm, was persuaded to eat a little. By
ten o'clock the carriage stood at the door, and Laura,
hugging her own handbag on the seat by the driver, and
Miss Hunter accompanied by the District Attorney,
drove toward the town.
While they stood in the dim, smoky station waiting
for the train, surrounded by a troup of friends who,
hearing of the second tragedy, had gathered to wish her
Godspeed on her mission of condolence, Mr. Bryan
discerned a blue-clad messenger boy enter the station
and search anxiously about. At sight of the Attorney


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
217
the lad doffed his cap and importantly handed him a
dispatch.
“I bin looking for Miss Hunter,” he explained "this
just come. They told me at her house I'd find her at the
station."
“I will give it to her,” Mr. Bryan said shortly, and
approaching the group, drew Miss Hunter to one side.
“This message has come,” he announced, and handed
it to her.
“Will you read it, please," the lady asked from the
depth of her veil. Flipping open the envelope the Attor-
ney ran his eye through the brief message it contained.
It was headed as the other message and read as fol-
lows:
DO NOT COME. THIS IS IMPERATIVE. LILLIAN BEARING UP
WELL. AM PERSONALLY CONDUCTING SEARCH FOR BODY. HER-
BERT ELTINGE WITH ME. INSIST THAT YOU REMAIN AT HOME.
LILLIAN JOINS ME IN BEGGING YOU TO WAIT THERE.
ALGERNON APPLEDORE
Now Miss Hunter's mind may well be read just here,
when at ten-thirty by the dingy station clock the en-
gine drawing her train pulled snorting into the station.
The sensation that lady experienced was akin to that of
one who has her face suddenly and violently slapped.
“But what, what am I to do?" she gasped, bewildered.
And in her dismay she caught at the District Attorney's
arm.


218
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Leading her to a bench in the station he drew her down
beside him.
“There is only one thing to do, Cornelia,” he said as-
suringly. “And Appledore may be right. You must do as
he asks and return to your home and await a third tele-
gram. They may~"and here he tried to be very tender
in what he must say—“they may already have found
the body and in that case will probably leave at once for
home. You see, you might pass them on the way. He
says here that young Eltinge is with them. And-and
I will be vastly relieved if you are spared the experience
of those hours with them at the lake.”
Something in the Attorney's voice lifted a vast load
from Miss Hunter's mind. It was as though she had
suddenly awakened from an ugly dream. And as suddenly
there rose before her in a wave of relief the peace of her
own house—her familiar rooms, her cool white bed
stretching ready before her, where she could lie at peace.
Summoning Laura to sit with her mistress, Mr. Bryan
hastily imparted the news of the second telegram to the
waiting friends, and by eleven that night Miss Hunter
was again driving in at her own front gate.
“This is certainly for the best,” the District Attorney
comforted more than once, when, after refusing the
offers of her friends to spend the night with her, the lady,
accompanied by him, was driving homeward.
“You are sadly shaken by this and you can be of more
use to them here than in Michigan. I will take command
to-night and see that you get some rest. I want you to


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
221
he did not show it to Dolly. Turning on his heel he ap-
proached the mansion. That nothing could have been
worse for his plan than to have a light set to burn in
2. the house did not occur to the poor dim brain of the
* faithful Abraham, so suddenly aroused to his duty.
Apparently their wish was to keep an intruder away
rather than catch him red-handed.
And it was with this feeling of annoyance that Mr.
ö Bryan went up the back steps and entered the kit-
chen.
On a table burned a small kerosene lamp and the doors
leading to the pantry and thence to the great square
i. dining room stood open, propped back with chairs.
Plainly Abraham Isaacs intended there should be no re-
be fractory doors in his path in the event of a sudden dis-
i turbance.
The Attorney passed through the pantry and thence
to the dining room. From there he saw that the same
d precaution had been taken with the doorway leading
į into the front hall, for through this came the dim light
ľ of a lamp. Evidently Abraham Isaacs was in the upper
1 hall completing his illumination.
· As the gentleman went forward toward the hall door,
from upstairs somewhere in the house he thought he
heard a noise, a sudden slamming of a door. He paused,
listening. Then, from directly above, on the second floor,
came a cry, prolonged and terrifying. A yell of terror,
swelling up, up until it broke off in a sickening strangling
in a throat. At the same instant came a crash of glass and


Chapter XXIV
WHEN a shuffling, terrified band of negro feet had carried
the limp body of Abraham Isaacs, sagging terribly be-
tween them, to his cabin, Mr. Bryan summoned Miss
Hunter from her rest. After this lady had tried unavail-“
ingly to console the terror-stricken, hysterical Dolly,
she and the District Attorney stood long in the dim hall
of Appledore Towers.
The Coroner was summoned and while they awaited
his arrival the two talked in hushed voices of the tragedy
so nearly enacted before their eyes.
“Of course we must search the house?” Miss Hunter
asked, looking with wide eyes up the dim tunnel of the
stairs stretching away to the second and third stories.
But after a pause her companion shook his head.
"No," he said, "and the most difficult part of it is to
explain why I shall not urge this. To search the place
would mean a discovery of the marks in the cellar and
that would eventually lead to publicity which would
make my plan for catching the intruder hopeless.” Miss
Hunter could only stare at him.
“Unless,” he said, “I am far wrong old Abraham's
death has nothing to do with the disturbance in the
cellar. It is possibly a coincidence. You know their super-
stitions, these negroes. Now what happens? He, for some
223


224 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
revolution of a sense of duty determines, since I am to
watch the house, that he will set a light to burn. It was
probably the old man's idea of protection. His last wish
was to capture an intruder. If he had had his way doubt-
less the whole house would have been illumined to drive
the intruder away. Now I believe the chances are that, in a
way, this happening may precipitate matters. Put yourself
in the place of the intruder. The motive governing him
is a powerful one, and the news of the death of old Abra-
ham when it leaks out may reach his ear and he may
fancy the house unguarded. What will he do? Before a
second guard is set upon the house he will probably make
a further attempt to enter the cellar.”
Miss Hunter stood tall and white and still in the dim
light of the lower hall.
“What was this crash of glass you heard immediately
heralding old Abraham's plunge down the staircase?"
she asked. For answer the Attorney lifted the lamp and
going over to the foot of the stairs showed her a great
grease spot on the carpet of the stairs and the shat-
tered fragments of glass.
"Abraham Isaacs had gone up the stairs to set his light
to burn as he did here in the lower hall. Now what hap-
pened? He was carrying a small lamp in his hand and
something frightened him. Frightened him till he turned
in terror, yelled, and plunged down the long staircase to
his death. The lamp fortunately was extinguished when
it struck the floor instead of setting fire to the house."
And then placing the lamp on a great carved chest, the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
225
District Attorney told Miss Hunter of the dying man's
last words—something about a ghost.
The lady shuddered.
“But what can it mean? What ghost?" she said, looking
past him up the stairs.
The Attorney shook his head.
“Probably only the old man's wanderings,” he replied.
“He was frightfully superstitious and the knowledge of
his mistress's death up there at Lake Michigan, coupled
with the other tragedy, was too much for him. He goes
up a stairs in an empty house with an exalted sense of
duty urging him on. His light is a dim one and is doubt-
less shaking in his hand. His shadow streams behind him
in the dim stretches of the upper hall. What happens?
He sees something, or fancies he does, which suddenly
causes his nerve-force to snap and he turns and runs
down the stairs. In his fright he stumbles and falls to his
death."
The lady stood for a long time searching his face with
wide eyes.
“You know," she said slowly, her voice almost a
whisper; "the negroes believe when-anyone,” and
her voice caught at saying the name of her dead friend,
drowned and alone three hundred miles away in the
lake—“they think the spirit of the unhappy dead returns.
Now old Abraham may have had this in his mind and
when whatever it was frightened him and he plunged
down the stairs, that may have accounted for his inco-
herent whisperings in death.”
dead friend
irit of the d miles


226 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“I am afraid,” her companion replied, “that that is a
point upon which there will never be any light. Now tell
me, how are your nerves?”
"I don't think I have any," the lady replied. “There
is a limit to tragedy, apparently, which leaves one dulled
to further feeling. Why do you ask?”
“Because,” her companion explained, “I am partic-
ularly anxious, as I have said, to go over the house first.
I have my pistol here and if you feel up to it just we two
will search the place from garret to cellar. It will serve,
in a way, to keep the Coroner and the police from doing
so and if I tell them I have been over the house that may
give me the time I want.”
And so, after a moment's hesitation, Miss Hunter
walked at the District Attorney's side and together they
climbed the stairs. The house was as still as the death it-
self which had lain twice there in the past two weeks. In
the garret, where they paused longest, there was not a
sound. Once from somewhere among the rafters a rat
squeaked and scurried, and once the lamp in the At-
torney's hand wavered and Miss Hunter ducked her
head as a bat, disturbed by the intruders, darted at the
flame. On the second floor at the door of the dead girl's
room the Attorney shook the knob. The door was locked
and would not give under his hand.
“Would it be possible, without consent of Mr. Apple-
dore, to force the lock if you thought it necessary?” his
companion asked.
"Possibly,” the Attorney said, standing before the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
227
great stretch of polished mahogany with its silver knob.
"But what could have frightened poor old Abraham from
behind the door?” Then he shook his head. “No,” he said
as they started down the stairs, “it is the living, and not
the ghosts of the dead, with whom we have to deal.”
The search of the lower floor and cellar proved equally
fruitless. There was no trace of any further disturbance
in the cellar and upon ascending the stone stairs and en-
tering the kitchen the sound of horses' hoofs coming into
the yard drew the gentleman and lady to the brightly
lighted cabin in the yard, where a long figure covered
with a sheet lay stretched upon three chairs. Negroes in
various stages of undress stood gaping at the doors and
each of the small windows framed a jostling group of
shiny black faces and shining whites of eyes. Poor
stricken Dolly was being comforted by Laura, herself
almost at the breaking point. After a brief account. of the
happenings, the District Attorney bade the Coroner
make his examination and dismiss the swarming negroes.
This formality was mercifully brief. Old Abraham had
met his death from a broken neck and when the Coroner
had finished with his examination he returned with them
to Miss Hunter's house.
As they were crossing the yard, from behind them in
the cabin came the strangling.call of the stricken wife.
And a moment later the figure of Laura appeared in the
doorway.
Next her feet came flying across the yard.
“Mis' Cornelia,” she said breathlessly. “Poo' Dolly


228
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
say she got somethin' ter tell yo' all an' she cyrn't res'
in her sorrow nor old Abraham in he grabe till she tells
hit.”
The three returned at once to the cabin where Dolly,
her face swollen with weeping, sat rocking back and forth
on a chair, her apron over her head.
“Mis' Hunter," the poor strangled voice came from
behind her hands, “dar's somethin' Ah got ter tell yo' all.
Somethin' ter 'splain 'fo' Abraham dar is laid in he grabe.
Ah cyrn't res' till I does. Dar ain't no peace in 'ception.
Jes’ 'fo' dis hyr happen Abraham went out de do' ter look
roun' de place 'fo' we alls went ter baid. Den he come in
hyr his eyes bulgin' sayin' it seems like he seed somebody
walkin' on de porch. Peers like hit was er woman, and dat
dar was er light in de big house. Ah tol' him hit's he 'mag-
ination an' he says anyway he gwine tell yo' 'bout it. An'
den he took on 'bout his faithfulness to Marster an' how
'shamed he was ob yo' habin' writ dat letter, and he says
he gwine ter go ober de house, leastways fer as de halls,
an he'd put de light whar yo' could git hit ef yo' was ter
want to go ober de place. Ah tol' him hit wasn't nuffin'
but his ermagination. What would er woman want
prowlin' round de place dis time er night? Seem like what
Ah say shame him mo' dan he was 'shamed befo'. An'
dat how cum he go up dar wid de light. Oh Laud Jesus, ef
Ah hadn't been er coward nigger my ole man would er
been live an' well dis minute an' not lyin' dar wid his
neck broke!”
The wailings of the poor soul were so distracted that


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 229
after a brief attempt at comforting her Miss Hunter led
her two companions from the room. There was no word
spoken as they crossed the garden. At the wicket gate
leading into her yard the Coroner shook his head and said
something under his breath.
“What was that?” the Attorney asked.
“Nothing,” he said, “only the plot thickens. A wo-
man, eh?”
Those three did not go to bed that night. And toward
morning, because he could think of no reason for with-
holding the facts, the District Attorney told the Coroner
of the midnight intruder and their visit to the Laughlin
house.
And so interested was the Coroner that he asked Mr.
Bryan to repeat the story from beginning to end.
Presently, it was when the first faint flush of dawn
was touching the east, Miss Hunter sat suddenly alert.
And this alertness was caused by a question the District
Attorney had asked unexpectedly.
“Do you think,” he said slowly, “it is possible the
woman Dolly says Abraham Isaacs saw in the yard
could have been Mollie Laughlin?”
But at the question Miss Hunter relaxed with a sigh
of relief.
“Not Mollie,” she said, “Mollie is a fool, and besides
she has always been afraid of her shadow.”
“Then,” the District Attorney insisted,"we have taken
a long chance in putting our confidence in the hands of a
fool. And a fool woman is sometimes a brave one.”


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 231
The District Attorney studied the message for some
time and his eyes traveled slowly into the yard where the
rosy mists were rising from the hedges.
"I wonder why," he said, half to himself, “he keeps
reminding us that young Eltinge will attend to things?
And he is certainly anxious, despite his grief at the second
tragedy, that you know how glad he is you remained at
your home. Hum,” and a long drawn out sigh. “Well,
there's no accounting for actions in times like these.
Did it ever strike you how some humans like to be alone
in their suffering? Now any of us, had such a thing hap-
pened, would want friends near to bear with us through
it all, while Appledore apparently is satisfied with this
young Eltinge, a chap we barely know, to shoulder it with
him. Wonder how poor Lillian feels?” The District At-
torney scratched a match on the sole of his shoe and
lighting a cigar, tossed the charred end into the jug of
lilies. But this time Miss Hunter was too absorbed to
offer an ash tray, despite her extreme dislike of disorder.
“You remember,” the lady said gently, she was always
gentle when anyone was troubled, "remember the bond
between this young Eltinge and Lillian Appledore. A
bond clearly recognized by the family yet apparently
unknown to us, their next-door neighbors. Probably the
girl does not want anyone else with her. Or, poor child,
she is too distraught to know what she wants or where
to turn in this hour of her need.”
For a second time since the receiving of the first tele-
gram the lady flushed with pain, and closing her eyes, her


THAT.GAY NINETIES MURDER 233
hrough the attic and find some black things to send her.
I will go with you directly after breakfast.”
Somehow or other that empty day passed. There were
the ministerings to poor Dolly, the answering of questions,
the heavy bleak anxiety for the daughter of her dead
neighbor; thoughts of a body floating now perhaps in the
lake lit by the summer sun.
That same oppression, which had heralded the disasters
which came so thick and fast to her neighbors, crept
over Miss Hunter again that day. Toward afternoon,
long after the Coroner and District Attorney had returned
to town with the assurance they would return at sun-
down, the lady lay in her muslin wrapper, stretched upon
her bed and trying to rest.
Now and then from her neighbors' yard she could
hear faint wails of the mourners who had come to com-
fort and sustain the stricken Dolly. Twice she had
visited the cabin herself with promises of aid and offering
what comfort she could to the poor soul lamenting and
berating herself for not having ventured into the empty
"house with her husband the night before. And toward
four o'clock a negro preacher arrived riding on a mule
and wearing a frock coat much too long for him and like-
wise silver-rimmed spectacles, and carrying a Bible. Seat-
ing himself in the cabin with the mourners he began to
"line it out” to the assembled company and at the end of
each verse there would be a wailing chorus, echoing his
last words.
“De Lord is ma shepherd
OSL.


234 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
Came the sonorous voice, then:
“Shepherd — .!" wailed the others in chorus.
Afterwards, when she could stand it no longer, Miss
Hunter rose and closed her window to the sound of
mourning. She had given Laura permission to sit with her
neighbor in her trouble and had likewise presented her
with the black lawn dress she herself had worn to Eliza-
beth Appledore's funeral.
No further word had come from the searchers at the
lake and toward five o'clock, while a storm was brewing
in the west, the District Attorney and the Coroner drove
into the yard. With the first hard pelting drops of rain
these gentlemen entered the hall and Miss Hunter went
down the stairs to receive them.
Afterwards, when they were in the parlor, the Attorney
spoke.
“Cornelia,” he said, “Mulligan and I are going to
watch the house again to-night. Do you think we could
probably gain entrance there without any of the watch-
ers at the cabin knowing of it?”
The lady nodded.
“I am sure of it,” she said presently. “After what has
happened I do not think any of them will venture into
the yard after dark.”
“Very well,” her companion said, "if you would be so
good as to ask us to supper we will go over there at about
eight o'clock.”
“Certainly,” Miss Hunter smiled, “I intended asking
you and it is a great comfort to have you in the house. The


236 . THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
ORDER
fell to dreaming himself-wondering, that is to say, why
the word murderers had occurred to him.
“Hasn't anybody been murdered at Appledore
Towers,” he thought uneasily.
“I want,” Mr. Bryan was saying as he reëntered the
parlor,“to walk over to the cabin, and after expressing my
consolation to the dead man's wife, to let the assembled
company of mourners see us and know our intention of
returning to town directly after supper. The fact is, I am
particularly anxious that none of the negroes, even your
Laura, know we are to be in the house over there to-
night.”
“Good idea,” the Coroner assented. “You'll stay over
here to er-watch for the telephone?” he asked Miss
Hunter uneasily.
“Yes,” the lady replied. “I can be of more use to you
here.” And it was with a certain relief at her decision that
before the supper was announced, the Coroner, leading
the party, walked through the garden toward the cabin.
"I will wait in the yard while you go inside,” Miss
Hunter said. The nearness of death had hung so closely
over her all day that the thought of again entering the
close, packed little cabin seemed more than she could
bear.
While her two companions were crossing the lawn and
had stood for a few moments talking with the negroes
grouped about the door, the lady strolled over the velvet
of the yard, heedless of its dampness from the summer
rain, toward the lonely group of cedars where lay the


238 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
With her practiced eye regarding flowers, Miss Hunter
recognized them as the finest of her neighbors' garden.
Who had plucked them? Who placed them upon the
daughter's grave? Not Dolly. She in her own grief was
mourning her own dead five hundred yards away. Not
old Abraham Isaacs; his fingers were stiff and cold before
these flowers were even plucked.
Old Sarah was at the lake with the family.
Miss Hunter leaned upon a gravestone, her eyes look-
ing at the faintly wilted flowers in their abundance
covering the mound-at the wide white ribbon flecked
with mud from the spattering rain.
With the oppression of impending disaster again en-
gulfing her she clutched her handkerchief to her throat
and hurried from the garden.
There was something suddenly terrifying to this lady
of fine nerve and stately bearing in the pale beauty of
the flowers—the dripping dampness of the spattered rib-
bon.


Chapter XXVI
That night passed quietly. The haze which had gathered
at sundown turned into soft rain toward morning and
Miss Hunter, sleeping fitfully, could hear from the
fortress of her great bed the slow drip, drip of raindrops
among the ivy on the wall. Twice during the night she
rose and seating herself at her window looked into the
dreary night. Through the misting rain was a dim light
shining from old Abraham Isaacs' cabin and now and
then the stifled wail of the mourners. Over toward
Appledore Towers no faint twinkle of light from the
kitchen betrayed in a band of yellow upon the mist that
the District Attorney and the Coroner were at their
vigil.
As dawn broke, bleary and chill, a cold wind was sweep-
ing down from the north and Miss Hunter rose and when
Laura, who had crossed the yard from the stricken cabin
in the early light, entered with her coffee, she was fully
dressed.
The funeral of the old negro was to be at two o'clock
and during the morning, after the weary watchers of
Appledore Towers had breakfasted with her, she put on a
mackintosh and going into the garden gathered a pro-
fusion of her flowers to place upon the old negro's casket.
Once while she was again looking at the withered stalks
239


240
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
of her June lilies she thought of those others gathered
from her garden for the casket of Elizabeth Appledore.
And once when the flowers were wet and dripping in her
arms she stood for some time in the swirling fog gazing
at the little clump of cedars. Then she shuddered. Who
had placed the armful of flowers on the sharp mound
covering her neighbors' daughter? Who had tied them
with white ribbon and left them in the rain?
No nearer a decision than before, she wearily returned
to the house and bade Laura carry her offering to poor
sobbing Dolly. And at two o'clock, she, with the Coroner
and District Attorney, viewed from the parlor window the
funeral train from the little cabin behind the grim towers
of the neighbors' mansion. First the hearse, insultingly
new and glittering, leading, as some stranger, the rickety
line of shambling old negro vehicles driven by the
mourners. One hack, closed and black and formidable
among the rest, bore poor Dolly, dressed in the black
Miss Hunter had sent. Laura rode beside her with the
others following. It had been Miss Hunter's intention to
go to the funeral herself, but the unutterable weariness
and depression which had come to her, together with the
driving mist which had gathered into rain as the after-
noon wore on, had driven the idea from her mind.
There was a bedraggled band of “lodge brothers” of
the dead man, wearing their purple regalia and carrying
spears with bows of dripping crêpe, the plumes from their
hats hanging in forlorn and wet festoons behind them.
They would walk the two miles to the negro burying


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 241
ground in the colored settlement where was to be old
Abraham's last resting place.
The muffled beating of the damp drum one of them
carried sent a sudden chill to Miss Hunter's heart as she
watched the dreary spectacle of the old negro passing
to his final rest.
“We is marchin'-ter Zion--
“Beautiful, beautiful, Zion--".
the walkers chanted in the gathering mist as they plodded
solemnly through the yard, past the high iron gates of
Appledore Towers, their voices accompanied by the
hollow dampness of the drum, the rattling and creaking
of the old conveyances, finally disappearing, a slow crawl-
ing stream, up the white turnpike, thence over the hill
into the mist.
The sudden change in the weather had caused Miss
Hunter to order a fire in the parlor and the three sat
about its faint yellow flame in dreary silence.
All day there had been no news from the searchers on
the lake and to Miss Hunter's alert mind the knowledge
that the bleak wind sweeping down with its accompani-
ment of rain from the north had, short hours before,
blown over that very lake where somewhere in the rise
and fall of the waters lay the dead body of her friend,
was unbearable.
It was with a distinct relief that when the District
Attorney announced his intention of again watching
at Appledore Towers that night the lady determined
this time to accompany him.


242
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“To-night's the night,” came from the Coroner, sit-
ting, his chin sunk on his chest, his eyes heavy with sleep,
on the farther side of the fireplace.
“Yes,” and the District Attorney smothered a yawn
with the back of his hand. “I have an idea that some-
thing will happen over there. With all the fuss over the
old negro's death it was beyond human reason for the
news of the disturbance not to have traveled to where
the intruder is hiding."
“Are you sure you do not mind my accompanying
you?" the lady asked in a low voice from where she was
standing looking into the rain-soaked garden.
“On the contrary," the Attorney answered, “I think,
if you feel up to it, that there is a possibility your presence
will be invaluable.”
Miss Hunter turned.
“You mean,” she searched his face for a sign of
confirmation, “what you said before about it being a
case of identification?”
The Coroner pricked up his ears, straightening himself
in his chair.
"Exactly.” Then he nodded to himself. “Memory
does tricky things at times. Do you know I have an idea
that we will recognize the person who is making such
determined efforts to enter the basement at Appledore
Towers?”
The room was still a moment. The logs of light wood
which had been lighted in the fire had burned themselves
out and the parlor was growing chill. The fire had crawled


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
243
ACOIS.
back into the farther corner of the fireplace and a single
red coal winked from behind the ash at the three con-
spirators.
“Is there no chance of my recognizing him, too?" said
the Coroner on his side of the fire.
“Might be,” the Attorney said after a while. And it
must be confessed that here Miss Hunter raised her dark
eyes questioningly to his. Then she frowned.
"I wish you could be more explicit," and she smiled
faintly. “I had an idea that the person you suspect was
seen only by ourselves.” The Attorney looked over at her
and the Coroner found himself hoping Mr. Bryan would
not rise and pat her hand again. If so, he would have to go
over to the window and look into the rain-soaked garden.
He was very tired and, besides, his chair in the still
warmth of the dying fire was very comfortable.
“It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has the
facts. You give me a single motive-even a clue to a mo-
tive as to why anyone should want to get into the cellar
wall-why something should have frightened old Abra-
ham Isaacs to death—why Elizabeth should have taken
her life and lastly why this tragedy at the lake should
have been enacted-and I will tell you why I think it
possible the Coroner may recognize the man as well as
we."
Miss Hunter hąd rung for afternoon tea for herself
and juleps for the gentlemen and when she reseated her-
self she turned the matter over in her mind.
“Yes,” she admitted finally, “I suppose you are more


244 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
used to seeing through a mystery than I and it is more
than possible you two will recognize this intruder, should
we be fortunate enough to apprehend him.”
The conversation was broken short here by the entrance
of a servant with a tray bearing the tea and whisky,
and for some time, in fact till twilight gathered, no
further mention of the adventure stretching before them
in the night was made.
After their supper, served by Laura, her eyes wide with
the interest of the funeral of the afternoon, it was de-
termined that they should enter the house shortly after
nine.
"I do not think there is a chance of his reappearing
before the small hours of the morning, but one can never
tell. The fact is, he was so extremely anxious to dig past
the wall before, and now with the assurance that there is
no Abraham Isaacs to watch the grounds, he may come
earlier. What do you think?”
Miss Hunter, slim and tall in the lower hall, a black
cashmere shawl about her shoulders, answered:
“I am ready, and the hour of this expedition shall be
entirely at your discretion,” but she shivered. “I suppose
it is needless to ask if you and Mr. Mulligan are armed?”
The reassuring pat on two hip pockets was entirely
satisfying and so again, and this time under lowering
skies with a thin patter of rain on the still leaves of the
garden, behold another procession of three, black-clad
and silent, wending its way through Miss Hunter's gar-
den.


246
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
holding back her skirts from the wet clinging branches of
the roses, a shadow darted before her and she caught her
breath. Then a plaintive mew from the darkness and the
shine of two red eyes, and next a soft rubbing against
her ankles. It was Fanny, her black cat, bent on some
mission of her own, and for certain secretive reasons of a
feline mind the wet blackness of the garden had been
chosen for her expedition also.
“Cat,” grunted the Coroner from behind them. “Hope
she's the only prowler we meet before we get to the
house!”
Fanny and her search for field mice was indeed the
only living object encountered, when at perhaps five
minutes after nine the three dark shadows paused at the
foot of the steps of the back porch which led into the
Appledore kitchen.
For a moment the District Attorney drew Miss Hunter
closer and whispered in her ear.
"Be careful when we go down the cellar stairs. It is
imperative that we make no noise. Do you know the way
through the pantry?”.
“I believe so," the lady whispered, and then catching
his hand she pointed through the darkness.
Over toward the cabin was a band of light straying
out into the mist. Two figures were seen to cross it and
from the yard came the creak of a door and the band of
light widened. It was the coachman escorting Laura on
her unwilling mission of consolation to Dolly. Presently
the light was extinguished.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 247
“So far our plans are working,” the lawyer whispered,
then, "are you ready?” There was no sign from his
companions, so carefully he climbed the short flight of
steps and put his hand on the knob of the kitchen door.
“Hello!" Miss Hunter heard him say under his breath
and then a whispered consultation with the Coroner,
then close to her own ear:
“Wasn't this door left locked?”
“Yes,” and also in whisper, “haven't you the key?”
“Yes,” her companion said, “but the door is open.
Funny.”
The District Attorney advanced slowly and presently
by the warm air and that indescribable smell of clean
washed floor and scoured pans Miss Hunter knew they
were in the kitchen of her neighbor. Her eyes were
becoming accustomed to the light and from where she
stood she marked the way to the pantry by the faint
square oblongs of the window showing against the night.
“You better lead the way," the voice of the Attorney
whispered and then-“Sh-h!—what's that?”
From far away, somewhere in the house, below them
and then apparently from the garret came a soft,
“Whack, Whack,” a moment's silence, and then another.
The hand of the Attorney tightened upon her arm
and his lips were so close to her ear she could feel his
excited breath stirring her hair.
“By God, the fellow is at work before us. Are you
afraid?”
“No,” in a low whisper, then:


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 249
did he cease his repeated driving blows against the stone
wall.
Slowly, very slowly, the three crept down the stairs,
their eyes intent on the crouching, frantically working
figure in the dim light.
Halfway across the room to the wall they paused and
Miss Hunter saw the Attorney motion to the Coroner to
move toward the open arch from where they might get a
clearer view of the worker. But this movement of added
caution was to prove a costly one to the Attorney. As the
Coroner stepped silently to one side to approach the
archway, when they were almost in its shadow, there
came a sudden and violent crash, the flinging forward of
a body, and the report of a pistol which sounded like the
crash of doom. Simultaneously with it, a fierce oath from
Mr. Mulligan. He had fallen directly over a wheelbarrow
in his path, unseen in the darkness, and in lunging for-
ward his pistol was discharged. In that same moment the
figure of the worker sprang to his feet and dashed the
candle to the ground. Next there came a flash of fire
from where the man had stood and the crash of a second
shot, a rain of plaster just over Miss Hunter's head
where the bullet struck and the sound of flying feet in the
darkness. An instant later the District Attorney was
flung violently to the ground and a body fought against
him in the darkness. A gasp of terror from the intruder, a
scrambling on the floor, and the flying feet again, this
time upon the cellar stairs, and the man was gone.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 251
wall,
than the first. The voice of a man, its sound struck a
chill at Miss Hunter's heart and she shrank against the
wall.
Above them from the dimness a figure appeared, plung-
ing down the stairs in frantic bounds. Miss Hunter saw
the District Attorney raise his pistol but at the same
second she saw something else. With a cry she sprang
forward, striking the weapon into the air. It was dis-
charged, the bullet burying itself in the ceiling of the
upper hall.
Down the steps at that moment came the flying figure
of a man-a man running for his life. He was clad in
clay-stained overalls, his eyes stretched wide, his mouth
open in terror, his face smeared with grease and dirt, a
heavy growth of beard covering his lower face. But in
that second as he darted past the thin circle of the lamp
in the Attorney's hand she had recognized the Laughlins'
boarder.
To this day Miss Hunter never knew why at that
moment as the terror-stricken figure fled past them on the
stair, the Attorney bounded upward instead of down.
He had received an ugly cut on his forehead from his fall
in the cellar and a trickle of blood partly obscured one
eye. A purple lump was rising on his forehead.
He was closely followed by the Coroner.
“Up there,” the lady heard him gasp as together they
ran up the stairs. The great hall stretched away into
blackness before them, but on the right, at the head of the
stairs where had been the polished locked door of the


252 THAT THAT GAY MURDER
GAY NINETIES N
dead girl's bedroom, there stretched a square of black-
ness.
Hurrying forward with the lamp they paused at the
opening. The door stood wide open and the faint light
of the kitchen lamp shed its radiance partially into the
room.
Then (and here Miss Hunter ground her teeth to keep
from screaming) they entered.
For one moment they stared about and then a smothered
exclamation from the Coroner caused her to turn. This
gentleman, accustomed as he was to death, was pointing
with one shaking hand to the rug before the great gilt
mirror.
Stretched before the glass, exactly where her daughter
had lain, was the figure of Mrs. Constance Appledore. In
her outstretched hand there lay a pistol and from her
temple a thin thread of long-dried blood strayed out
upon the floor. Her glazed, sunken eyes stared clouded up
into the shaking lamp, the black lace scarf she had al-
ways worn had fallen backward from her hair.
With a sharp intaking of breath the Attorney and
the Coroner knelt beside the figure. The Attorney was
the first to speak.
"For God's sake light another lamp.” Miss Hunter did
as she was bidden, her body trembling. She dared not
look behind her at the group upon the floor. When the
lamp was lighted and its radiance filled the room she
turned. Catching at the corner of the table she stared at
the spectacle before her.


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 253
The two men were whispering in excited voices. And
finally the Attorney spoke.
“Look here!"
And walking unsteadily to where they knelt, Miss
Hunter knelt also.
One of the long black silk gloves which her dead
friend had worn was drawn down about her wrist and
across the shrunken white forearm was a long, seared burn.
The other glove, the one worn on the right hand, was in
place. The hair worn low upon her forehead, which had
caused Miss Hunter's wonder, was falling back and,
like her daughter, there was a frightful splash of acid
across her forehead stretching up into the scalp. On the
floor at some distance lay a brown flask like that found
in the daughter's hand; the remainder of its contents
trickling out across the floor had caused a white flaked
spot where this had eaten deep into the wood.
There was a long pause while the Coroner made his
hurried examination. But when he sat back upon his
heels, this gentleman's face was ghastly.
“Like the other,” he said half to himself, “acid and
pistol. Both alike.” Then, as the eyes of the Attorney met
his own:
“She has been dead two days.”
Yet there was one thing Miss Hunter noticed, so horrid
to her mind trained in every delicate sensibility that she
shuddered at its grotesqueness. The face of her dead
friend was again heavily masked with powder-dead
white and so caked upon her poor drawn features as to


254 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
make them almost unrecognizable. The mouth now drawn
and stiff was a scarlet stab—the sunken cheeks were
heavily, fantastically rouged. It was like a dead clown's
face lying tragic, ghastly, and still against the dull red
glow of the carpet.


256
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
flutter of wings and the spatter of raindrops on their
heads and the hoot of an owl as he flapped away into the
darkness, and once, when the shadowy outline of Mollie
Laughlin's house loomed before them in its soaked half
acre of ground, from far away across the fields the town
clock struck ten.
During the first part of their hurried walk the moments
were too tense for speech. And Miss Hunter's mind was
whirling in such a circle she was unfitted for consecutive
thought. Finally a broken sentence, her voice panting
in her throat,
“The telegram—the telegram saying Constance was
drowned in the lake, and you say she has lain there dead
two days!"
And later, when no answer came from the Attorney,
the Coroner said gruffly in his haste
“Was there anything familiar in the face of the man
who ran down the stairs?”.
In a few hurried words the Attorney recounted their
viewing the man the afternoon he slept with the finger of
sunlight touching his face in the ramshackle garret of
Mollie Laughlin's house.
“There was—it may have been my imagination-but
in that moment–besides the recognition of him as the
Laughlins' boarder-I thought—there was something
familiar in the sound of his voice when he cried out in
terror there in the upper hall as he fled down the steps!"
“Then that would explain—if any of it can be explained,
what he was doing there." And as he was lowering the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
257
bars at the end of the pasture preparatory to their
descent upon the house of Laughline
“Has it occurred to you, Cornelia, that the fellow is
Herbert Eltinge?”
It must be here recorded that, half over the remaining
bar, Miss Hunter gasped. The rain, now increased to a
steady torrent, had strung her brown hair into her eyes,
her mantle hung wet and flapping in the cold wind.
“Then that was it—his voice "
And on the way to the cottage, lonely and sagging
before them in the jimson-weeds—“The grease and dirt
and beard would have caused me not to recognize-I
never saw him often—but his voice "
And while they were pounding upon the sagging white
door of the Laughlins' there seemed to come again,
through the wind and rain and darkness, a hurried voice
a voice reading from behind the hot gloom of a summer-
house and through the hedge-reading so low, so hur-
riedly she could not understand. There in the blackness
of the night there seemed again the big round moon
peeping mysteriously at her through the archway of the
door.
The voice was Herbert Eltinge's.
“But he—the telegrams from Mr. Appledore, they
said he was at the lake!” Miss Hunter gasped.
Yet before the Attorney could remind her of that other
message from the lake the one of Mrs. Appledore's own
destruction, the frightened footsteps of Mollie Laughlin
were heard from just inside the door.


258 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
“Thar ain't nobody hyr 'cept me and the chilern. Git
away from thar or I'll put a load of buckshot ”.
“It is I, Mollie, Miss Hunter! Open the door.”
A confused exclamation came from behind the panel
and it opened a crack.
“Well, for the love of " but Mollie, holding a shak-
ing lamp high above her head, was too frightened to
finish. Behind her, cowering like two little ghosts, were
Edward and Annie, barefooted and in their night clothes.
“Come in,” Mollie gasped. Then seeing the Attorney
and Coroner her eyes widened with fright.
“Mollie,” Miss Hunter said hurriedly, as they stood, a
strange dripping group, about the miserable little room,
the smoky lamp shedding a feeble radiance over their
white faces. “Where is your boarder? When did he come
back? Is he here?”
The Attorney took a step forward toward the stairs.
“Lord!” Mollie gasped. “What has happened over
yonder? No'm, I ain't seed the feller for two days. He
never left no word, and yestiddy when I went up thar to
straighten up he was gone. Had lit out without telling me
nothing of his goin'. He left a twenty-dollar bill pinned to
the door. 'Sides, he wasn't never hyr durin' the night.”
With a few short strides the District Attorney, holding
the lamp in one hand, climbed the rickety stairs and
chrust his head through the trapdoor into the garret.
When he returned it was to nod at Miss Hunter in the
smoky light.
“That's right, the fellow's gone. Now, Mrs. Laughlin, I


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER 259
want you to make a clean breast of it. What did this fellow
know? Did you tell him of our visit?”
Mollie's terrified denial left them in no further doubt.
A questioning of little Edward and his confederate Annie
proved equally unavailing.
“I never heard nothin' of that air dollar you give Ed-
derd for that piece of rug," defended Mollie.
After a strict instruction that should anything further
develop as to the boarder's whereabouts a substantial
sum would be paid her, the three drenched people started
back across the lonely fields.
“I don't think the fellow will grace the house of
Laughlin again,” was the Attorney's comment as they
neared the stable and two sleek greyhounds, whining and
shaking themselves in the rain, came forth to greet
them with the pleased wonder of dogs at the unexpected
arrival of a friend.
“So snap goes a thread of my reasoning," commented
Mr. Bryan as they passed through the yard to the Apple-
dore house.
“I had an idea that we might apprehend the fellow,
that he might, on being discovered, make a get-away
and we could reach the house before he left. But I believe
the woman. Plainly the fellow has chosen another spot
for hiding, since the death of old Abraham Isaacs.”
“But what,” gasped Miss Hunter, trembling with
cold and terror, when again they stood at the back door-
way of Appledore Towers, “are we to think about those
others- pas


262 THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
above disclosed its length and finally a lighted lantern
was lowered to the opening below. The discovery ex-
plained the sound of the blows upon the wall in the cellar
resounding in the garret. Hence old Abraham's confusion
as to their locality. But if the examination disclosed
the air chamber from garret to cellar it did not explain
the iron trunk lying at its bottom, nor why it had been
thrown there in those moments after the death of Eliza-
beth Appledore.
It was a sound structure, that trunk, and required
prying with the crowbar to dislodge its hasps and finally
its lock. Yet its contents were even more perplexing.
The trunk was carried into the daylight of the back yard
and there the Attorney, the Coroner, and a group of curi-
ous neighbors made their inspection.
It was apparently filled with broken glass bottles and
many sheaves of papers, yet so stained and burned with
acids by its fall as to make them illegible. Some combi-
nation of broken acid bottles, so hastily gathered to-
gether, also destroyed some books of a technical nature,
yet evidently they had pertained to chemical and medi-
cal research. And this, coupled with the young Mr.
Herbert Eltinge's degree in medicine and the knowledge
that he bought chemicals from time to time, while it
might explain their presence in the house, failed to ex-
plain why they should have been so mysteriously de-
stroyed.
A careful and somewhat lengthy examination of these
stained, burned papers failed to disclose anything save
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


266
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
would not go away, and finally on a blustery win-
ter's night when the Attorney sat opposite her cheerful
hearth, a toddy in his hand, and she, stately in black
velvet, was employed with embroidery-she told him of
it.
The morning after their wire reached the family at
the lake telling of the finding of Mrs. Appledore dead
in her own house at a crossing twenty miles away an
old watchman had said he was bidden ilag a train.
The couple who requested this were a man, very ill, the
woman said, for his face and head were bandaged-
bandaged so completely as to make recognition impossible
—the woman she was barely more than a girl-had
told the watchman she was a trained nurse from a hos-
pital and was taking her patient to the city. These were
the tiny fragments of the story-told weeks after when
the old country watchman had read of the disappearance
of the Appledores from Lake City.
He had not recalled in what direction the train was
bound, whether a local for Chicago or eastward.
When Miss Hunter finished with her reminiscence of
the old watchman's story the Attorney looked long into
the glowing embers of the fire. Outside the wind rose and
sang in the pines, whipping the ice-clad arms of the tulip
trees and maples together. Once a gust of wind swept
down the bleak painted floor of the porch outside and
set the heavy rustic chairs there rocking back and forth.
And once, when a sharper gust blew a whirl of rattling sleet
against the glass, Mr. Bryan nestled deeper into the


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
267
comfort of his chair, vastly content against the storm
with the firelight, the toddy, and Miss Hunter.
“There seems to be a fatality of disguise in the whole
thing,” he remarked, and so intent was be in the firelight
that, biting off the end of his cigar, he lighted it without
asking Miss Hunter if he might smoke.
“I think you once spoke of the daughter Elizabeth's
wearing her hair low upon her forehead like her mother-
and of her mother's black lace veil, and lastly the heavy
powdering of her features you found so unexplainable.
Now here then we have the father, Appledore, if your
theory of the railroad watchman is correct, also wearing
a disguise and the daughter, if it were Lillian, that
morning was heavily veiled. And lastly, if we are correct
in thinking the midnight digger in the cellar was indeed
Mr. Herbert Eltinge, certainly his two weeks' beard and
the attendant grease and overalls to carry out his story
that he was night watchman at a quarry was disguise
enough. By the way, we were never able to substantiate
the fellow's story to Mollie Laughlin as to the location
of the quarry where he worked.”
The lady shook her head. “No, that part of it was
never discovered.” And after a thoughtful gaze into the
fire—“I must go over and see if Mollie is all right this
weather. Poor woman, I misjudged her powers of silence.
Certainly she never betrayed our visit to her cottage."
The District Attorney laughed.
“Do you know, Cornelia, in looking back over the past
year and thinking out this case the only real point we


THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
269
It was slow. Very. Miss Hunter, as has been remarked
in these pages, was not a person who did things quickly,
nor did the generation of which she was a part. And
“taking its temper from its entertainment” apparently
the mystery, which grew blacker as the passing months
gathered into years, was likewise slow.
The second winter (to the Coroner's disgust, “The law
lost a good man in him," as he put it) Miss Hunter and
the District Attorney were married.
“The one bright spot in the tragedy which drew us to-
gether," this gentleman said once in speaking of his
engagement.
This was in 1893, and instead of the “grand tour” of
the Italian Lakes, they spent their honeymoon at the
great. World's Fair, where, as a representative family
of the bluegrass region, these two were widely entertained.
And upon their return their home was made at Miss
Hunter's house and early each morning this lady, stately
and fine, could be seen, white-clad and immaculate,
bidding the District Attorney good-by and he, “to keep
his health,” would walk the mile each morning into town.
So, slowly with the passing years, the mystery of the
long-closed house next their own was forgotten, for-
gotten, that is to say, save for those summer evenings
when in the dim moonlight these two would wander
hand in hand through the garden, pausing long enough
to gather the lilies or roses and walk across the stretch
of silvery lawn which had once been the pathway for so
much adventure, to the clump of cedars, casting pools


270
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
of black shadows over the grass-grown mounds where
lay their neighbor and her daughter.
And then, at last, from an unexpected source, the truth
of the matter, so long a puzzle, came to light. And oddly
enough from a paper, to which Miss Hunter, now Mrs.
Bryan, subscribed, and sent her by the church guild, a
paper of foreign missions.
It all occurred on a night when her husband, across the
hearth, was absorbed in a brief, while she, who must
read a paper of her own before the guild, was seeking
inspiration from the “Foreign Evangelist.”
She read a paragraph twice and at her exclamation the
District Attorney dropped his brief and stared at her.
He had not seen that expression in her eyes nor heard
that sound in the lady's voice since the night when they
had fled through the pastures in the rain.
"Listen to this. A reprint from a Missionary Letter
from the island of Tahiti.
“Died: In the thirty second-year of his age. George
Warren, for four years attendant physician of volunteer
service in the leper colony, from complications brought
on by tropical fever.
“An incident attendant upon the grief of the passing
of this beloved physician who, with his wife, had de-
voted their lives to ministering to our colony, will
be of interest, if not here, to the far-away land of the
United States. This was the letter left with the effects
of the deceased doctor, stating that the true name of the
deceased was not George Warren, but one Herbert


272
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
after a tour of the world, first suspected he had con-
tracted the disease. The attendant hope that he was mis-
taken, the futile fight against the inevitable, and lastly
the bowing to his fate, brought about his seclusion, his
travel, and the eventual dissolution of his home.
"To-day, to those who read this in the far-off land of
the United States, if they be dear to him, let them
know that now on this island in a sheltered spot, and
where white poppies bloom, these flowers bearing their
symbol of eternity, there lie serenely guarded by tower-
ing cliffs and the shimmer of the sea the bodies of these
faithful.”


Chapter XXIX
The following morning the District Attorney was bound,
on the Queen and Crescent Railroad, for Louisiana.
And there, after showing the proper credentials, he was
admitted to the presence of an old doctor in charge of the
leper colony on its lonely island of the Mississippi.
It was a long story, and one, when he brought back
the facts, which brought to light and set at rest the doubts
as to the tragedies enacted in Appledore Towers. On Mr.
Algernon Appledore's flight from the lake he had jour-
neyed to Louisiana and there under an assumed name
and a certificate obtained by Dr. Eltinge he had been
admitted as a patient. Mercifully he was spared the
death awaiting the others of his comrades gathered there
by some swifter complication from the disease. And into
the old doctor's hands he had intrusted a paper-a
sealed confession marked only “to be called for.” This
gentleman, in respect for the dead man's wishes, had pre-
served it till the visit of the District Attorney—that visit
which was to set free the truth.
On suspecting he had contracted the disease, Mr.
Appledore had, as had been the bits of the story gathered
from Lillian Appledore's confession on her own death-
273


274
THAT GAY NINETIES MURDER
bed, secured the services of Herbert Eltinge, a graduate
medical student, who for a large sum had consented to
undertake the research for a cure for leprosy. His con-
nection with the firm of Appledore & Erwin had been
a blind. On the second journey around the world Mr.
Appledore had discovered that the reason for the sale of
the magnificent and rare Gurdez rug to him was that
its owner had died under peculiar circumstances; in short,
that the family to whom it had belonged had been a
family of lepers. On the night Miss Hunter heard the
voice reading low and hurried in the garden the young
doctor had gone early for the mail to secure the last
medical treatises on the disease. And it had been from
this book he was reading. That was the morning after
Mr. Appledore's return from his circle of the globe. He
had, fearing the worst, had tests made which proved
beyond a doubt that he was a victim of leprosy. His
horror of his family suspecting that they, too, were in-
fected had amounted to a mania and in his despair that
night he had killed his daughter Elizabeth, she having
been brought from school when her eyes began to fail.
He had seen the white marks upon her forehead and
secured the acid from the laboratory of the doctor, and
after the shot, obliterated that ghastly, spreading white-
ness of the disease. The girl, as did her mother, when
the brand of Cain appeared, shrank into a morbid seclu-
sion, of course, without dreaming of the truth. The child
had become infatuated with the young doctor, who in
turn had loved her sister Lillian. Mrs. Appledore's in-









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