NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
3 3433 07487336 9





JUN.
1949



FINANEW-YOEL
RADAS
40e
Norce
teip.
Acum
SOCIETY
l Galloudef.sc
1758



NCW
Lauristor











THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
VICTOR LAURISTON
l'Ĉi
Laurister



HO
fatt
A
LLE
Αθήναι
?
T-MICA
YORK
1194
Norce
teip.
cum
CNP
SOCIETY
€ Galloutef.sch
1758


NCW
Louriston











THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
VICTOR LAURISTON
NČli
Lauristo





111401B
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.
LEM
NEW YORK
SOCILIY LIBRARY
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR. I
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


1922
OCT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT . . . .
II THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS . . . . . .
III THE PRINT OF A HAND .....
IV THE MAN IN GREY . . . . .
V THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR . . .
VI THE RECORD THAT VANISHED . . .
VII THE LETTERS IN WINRIGHT'S DESK
VIII THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD . . .
IX 'The MAN IN GREY AGAIN . . . . .
X The PARTING OF THE Ways ....
XI The 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE. . . 115
XII The RIDE IN THE STORM . . . . . 125
XIII THE END OF THE RIDE . . . . . .
XIV The INTERRUPTED SEARCH . ....
144
XV THE BOOK OF THE Past . . . . . . 156
XVI THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR . . . . . 167
XVII THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY, X . . . . 177
XVIII The Man Who COULD TELL EVERYTHING 186
XIX THE WOMAN Who Could Tell ...
XX The Road OF TEARS ......: 211
XXI THE UNANSWERED QUESTION . . . . 223


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR





THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
CHAPTER I
THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT
Our lives are mostly desert wastes of petty things.
Yet here and there in a wide expanse of Nothing Doing
stands out one day, an oasis of huge event, whose miraged
memory we mark in red-yes, or in black.
Such a day, vivid, outstanding, unforgettable, Laura
Winright knew when she again met George Annisford
after two years' absence.
She had just returned from Europe, called home by
her father's letter.
Annisford, she knew, would meet her at New York.
He did not.
That was the first shock which startled Laura Win-
right into stark attention.
Her father, then, must be even worse than his last
letter had intimated. That was the one conclusion she
could draw from her fiancé's default. With characteristic
impetuosity she straightway used the long distance tele-
phone to reach Annisford at Detroit. Then, being a
normal woman, she forgot to ask most of the questions
that had fluttered excitedly in her mind.
“Oh, see here, chick!" protested Annisford jestingly
across six hundred miles of wire. "You've come down
on us like the wolf on the fold. We haven't time to send
out for crackers and cheese. . . . Of course your father
19 ,


10
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
is just fine and dandy. Why shouldn't he be? ... Now,
you might just as well stay in New York and do a bit
of shopping. You can't get the styles or the bargains
we have right here at Winright's but it'll be something
to tell Maitland Port that your summer outfit came from
Fifth Avenue. ... Well, come right on, if you're so
utterly perverse! ... Now, chick, there's no blamed use
asking if I love you! Of course I do. ... Well, now,
that's a question! Why do I talk like this? Why—
why-well, you came down on .us just like the Assyrian,
as I was saying. I mean, like the wolf. Nobody expected
you home for at least six months. ..."
Annisford said a lot more; but these were the significant
words that haunted Laura Winright.
Her return from Europe, in response to her father's
urgent summons, had surprised her fiancé.
Her father seemed in his usual good health.
Annisford could see no reason whatever for her in-
sistence on reaching Maitland Port without delay.
She wished she had her father's letter in her hand-bag,
instead of in her steamer trunk. But, anyway, she could
remember its purport quite well. Adam Winright was
ill—so ill that he felt alarmed-he wished to see her
before he died-would she come home by the next boat ?
Throughout the voyage, that message had stood out
before her mind in characters of fire. Its terror dom-
inated all the dangers that lurked in wait for the ocean
liner. Her father was ill, perhaps dying, at Maitland
Port. At whatever risk to herself, she must see him
before he died.
As she left the telephone booth a few vivid phrases
in his letter flashed before her mind:
“Laura, you must come home at once. Come by the
next boat. I am far from a well man, and there are things


THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT II
II
I cannot write in a letter, that I must tell you before
I die ..."
Laura caught a night train for the west. Then she
wished she had telegraphed her father, at Maitland Port.
On after thought she telegraphed him in the early morn-
ing, from Albany.
At noon when the train pulled into Buffalo, George
Annisford, big and beaming, joined her at lunch.
"How is he?"
Her anxious question tore like shrapnel through the
young man's story of how he had come down from
Detroit to meet her.
"He? Who? Is it a conundrum?”.
A flash from Laura's blue eyes wilted Annisford's
mirth.
"Who? Father, of course!"
"He's bright as the lark that sings at dawn from yonder
hedgerow. . . . Here am I, chick, old-countryizing my
conversation to please your Anglicized taste, and you look
like a funeral! Very likely your dad will die of surprise
when you come prancing in so unexpectedly, but ...
oh, say, you surely never meant all that rot about going
for a Red Cross nurse !"
Laura Winright, bewildered, watched Buffalo slide past
the windows, the city merging into straggling suburbs
and wide fields. George was surprised at her home-
coming. Her father would be surprised. Yet her father
had himself written her to come! The problem grew
singularly puzzling. Of course she must have misunder-
stood his letter-
Yet there were lines of it photographed on her memory:
“Laura, you must come home at once. Come by the
next boat. I am far from a well man, and there are


12
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
things I cannot write in a letter, that I must tell you
before I die ..."
She stared at Annisford.
Adam Winright must have some deep reason for
keeping his serious illness a secret from the man nearest
him, his partner, young Annisford.
"Tom's in Detroit," breezed Annisford. "He's filling
the toes of my shoes for the day. He was powerful
anxious to welcome the prodigal daughter personally and
to murder the overgrown ox with his own howitzer.
You see, patriotic citizens don't kill fatted calves any
more; they let them grow up into beef. Oh, I say, I'd
better wire your father”.
"I did, this morning, from Albany."
"Good! That will give Turkey Bird time to toast your
slippers before the grate and chase the moth balls out
of your pink kimono.”
Laura refused to laugh.
“You're sure father is quite well, George?".
"Never better." No shadow clouded Annisford's out-
look. “We'll see the show at Detroit to-night, and"
"We'll go right on to Maitland Port the minute we
reach Detroit."
“Why not take a taxi out to Woodlawn Cemetery?
It's just as dead.”.
She was in no mood to laugh.
"I mean it,” she declared. “I'm not going to argue,
either. I simply must get home.”
Long before reaching Detroit, their protracted argu-
ment had ended in victory for Laura. She would take
the next train for Maitland Port. She fretted at the
fifteen minutes' delay between trains. She refused to
leave the Union Station.
Tom Winright filled in the interval. A very dignified


THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT 13
brother he was, though in his early twenties, tall, with
soldierly moustache and steel grey eyes that lit when they
rested on her.
"How is he-father?" Again the anxious question
surged to Laura's lips.
Her brother, she felt sure, must know of her father's
illness, even if Annisford did not.
Tom twisted the tips of his moustache.
“Laura," he rejoined, with an air of bantering phil-
osophy, “this world is full of uncertainties. But when
I left Maitland Port on Sunday there was one certainty.
Dad felt fine. Did you ram any U-boats on the trip
across ?”
"N-no." Laura's mind, preoccupied with her father's
illness, quite failed to grasp the question. "No, I suppose
not. 14"
She halted. Her brother's slender fingers, curving,
with a swoop imprisoned a fly that had settled on the
back of the seat. Tom, still chatting serenely, drew a
pin from his coat lapel and studied his prisoner with
the cold, critical eye of a skilled anatomist. Laura's
lips trembled.
"Tom! That's sheer cruelty!"
Tom smiled.
"Swat the fly!"
"But don't torture him."
Tom carelessly brushed aside the mangled remains.
"Never again, Laurie,” he vowed. “Yet there's so
many millions of flies, I think you really could spare me
just one. I'd like to take the run back to Maitland Port
with you," he went on, "but-well, our friend Annisford
has first call. Eh?"
Laura flushed. The jesting tones of both men chimed
in ill with her apprehensive mood. The blue coated,


14 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
dogmatic announcer at the exit bellowed a warning of
the north-bound train.
Tom, stooping, gravely kissed the fair-haired girl.
She gazed into his eyes.
“You're sure that dad's all right, Tom?"
"Positive.”
As she passed with Annisford through smoke and
noise and confusion to the train, she saw again those
words, written in letters of fire:
“Laura, you must come home at once. Come by the
next boat. I am for from a well man, and there are things
I cannot write in a letter, that I must tell you before
I die ..."
An early evening breeze blew off Lake Huron when
the two descended from the train. The last red kiss
of sunset lingered lovingly on the cedar-clad cliff that over-
hung the shadowy harbour of Maitland Port. Away
above them dozed the little lake town; about them lay the
shadowed harbour and the darkened wharves, with gloomy
buildings and ghostly spars, and from beyond the sand
bar at the river mouth came the beat of waves on the
beach. With quick glances Annisford searched the
deserted station platform.
"Why isn't the car here?” he demanded.
"The car! Is it possible?”
"It most emphatically is not possible for that chauffeur
ever to be on time, or to be on hand at all when he's
wanted. As for the car, chick-oh, I suppose it's one
of your father's surprises-eh? He's like providence,
is Adam Winright-he moves in a mysterious way his
wonders to perform. Anyway, the car's not here. Now
that shoe leather is so abominably high, we'll have to
hire a taxi or—"


THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT
15
He checked himself. A mud-bespattered car whirled
up. The driver, leaping to the platform, came up to
Laura Winright. She noticed he was dark, and young.
He held out his hand.
"I'm Nick Ross,” he announced. "Is this Laura Win-
right?” He gripped her hand. “Mr. Winright just now
telephoned me"
Already he was assisting Laura to her seat.
“Thank you,” she said, and beamed on him.
Annisford took his place beside her. “Ross,” he said,
leaning forward, "you're an impertinent pup." His tone
was perfectly good-natured.
"Annisford,” said Ross, without turning from the
wheel, “you're another."
Laura smiled.
"Really he's very nice," she whispered. “Who is he,
anyway? I don't remember any Nick Ross in Maitland
Port."
"He's the chauffeur.”
Laura felt a shock. A mere servant had presumed to
run up to her on the station platform and to shake hands,
yes, and to call her Laura Winright. She glanced at him
again. Beneath the arc light that swung above the station
platform, the young man's lips were drawn tight. That
bespoke hurt; or, at least, an effort at self-control.
"Castle Sunset !” she commanded imperiously. She
meant to put the presuming chauffeur in his place.
Then, suddenly, an affrighted idea drove all thought
of dignity from her mind. She leaned forward.
"Just a minute, Ross."
The chauffeur turned. This time he played superbly
the rôle of deferential servant.
“At what time did Mr. Winright telephone you?".
"Eight or nine minutes ago, I should say, Miss Win-
right.” He glanced at his watch. "That would be


16
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
let me see-two minutes to eight. Yes, I'm certain the
clock in the garage struck the hour just as I started the
car." He seemed oddly eager to fix the minutest detail in
her mind. “You will excuse my being a little late ?"
"It is of no moment."
Laura's manner rebuked the dark-faced young man's
unforgotten presumption.
Then she put him out of her mind. She sank back
on the leather-cushioned seat. Her eyes closed.
The nervous strain that had oppressed her ever since
her father's letter reached her in England, was gone
now. She was free, at last, to joy in these familiar
sights and sounds—the darkness creeping across Lake
Huron, the road up Harbour Hill, the lighted clock-tower
in the distant Square, whose dial, as they turned into wide
West Street, marked nine minutes after eight.
The apprehension that had haunted her all day vanished
with the chauffeur's words. Whatever the more distant
future might hold, in a few moments now she must
find her father waiting to welcome her.
Annisford spoke.
"Nobody loves him," he whispered, nodding toward
the chauffeur. "So he just stays in the garage and
invents inventions. He's invented a long wiry one and
a square black one."
Laura laughed.
“We won't bother about him," she commented. "In
a minute or two we'll see the house of ghosts.”
Both laughed, this time. That jest reached back to
their childhood, when Judith MacTurk, the old Scotch
housekeeper, had told them dismal stories that put their
hair on end.
“Turkey Bird did hand out some tall old yarns,"
laughed Annisford. “Do you remember that night I
caught her wandering about the house in the dark? I


THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT
"18"t.
asked her why she didn't have a light, and she said it
would scare away the ghosts. She was horribly fond
of spectres, wasn't she?".
Again Laura laughed. From a source of childish
terror, old Mrs. MacTurk's ghosts had degenerated into
theme for maturer jest.
"See,” she added, quickly, “there's Castle Sunset
now!"
“And not a blue ghostlight glimmering from a single
turret,” flashed Annisford. "Ghost-lights are blue, aren't
they ?”
The car swept up toward a huge, horned monster
darkly outlined against night sky and river valley.
"Let us down at the front gate," commanded Miss
Winright.
The headlights lit a tall, serrated iron fence; and beyond
it the huge monster, illumined, grew into a grey old
house, and the horns into turrets topped with slender
spires. Beyond, the sunset had gone to sleep in the grey
bed of the lake. The dismal wash of the waters came
to them, and the scent of the chill lake breeze.
The chauffeur with silent deference helped Laura to
descend. His fingers seemed to linger on her gloved
hand. With queer intentness, Laura Winright realized
that the young man's hand trembled.
She hurried with Annisford up the winding walk, her
eyes anxiously scanning the broad porch, and the rustic
seats on the lawn.
"It's strange”_with a sudden start of returning ap-
prehension—"that father didn't come to the station.
Where is he?"
The facade of the strange old house overhung her like
a threatening cloud.
"It's all so dark!” she breathed.


18
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
The front door stood a trifle ajar, though the May
evening was chill. Annisford stepped aside.
"You go first, George," urged Laura Winright.
The young man, entering, snapped on the light. He
did not need it; he could have threaded his way through
the house blindfold. To the girl's trembling heart the
light brought a world of cheer.
"Father will be in the Ghost Room.” She essayed to
laugh.
Annisford knew. Always, the old man had clung to
his library, which, shut off at the end of the long hall,
assured him the solitude he craved and an unbroken
view of the brilliant Huron sunsets. She remembered
as a little girl sitting on his knee in that room, watching
the changing panorama of scarlet and gold.
Past the foot of the broad staircase they entered
shadow. The library door at the end of the hall stood
open; but the only light from its black recess was the
tiny glow of a coal in the grate.
"Is father there?" questioned Laura.
Annisford pushed the door wider. Adam Winright
sat there, his shadowy figure bowed over the library
table.
“Father!" cried Laura.
She stretched out her arms to him. Silence was the
only answer.
"Poor dear! He's gone to sleep!” she told Annisford,
in tones tremulously low.
She stole into the room, her light footfalls making
scarce a sound, her soul intent on glad surprise. Annis-
ford followed, with steps instinctively hesitating.
Laura came up softly behind the old man's chair. Her
heart felt glad. So, many and many a time, she had
surprised him dozing in his chair.
"Father!" she cried, her tone a-thrill.


THE DAY OF HUGE EVENT 19
Still there was no answer.
"Father! Don't you hear me? It is I–Laura.”
The man at the table never stirred. The girl glanced
at Annisford, her breath coming and going, terror in
her eyes. Annisford, bending over the old man,
listened.
"Mr. Winright!
In the quiet room where a moment before they could
almost have heard their own heart-beats, his voice rang
strangely loud.
A sudden flame in the silence that followed leapt from
the red embers in the grate. Its glow kindled the girl's
terrified face.
"What is it?” She commenced horribly to understand.
"It can't-oh, surely, it can't be".
Annisford gripped her hand.
“Be brave, dear," he whispered.
She tried to be brave. Annisford, stepping to the wall,
pressed a push-button. Then she saw him standing at
the telephone in the hall, impatiently banging the receiver
up and down.
"I want Doctor Chalmers." His tone was peremptory.
"Tell him to come at once. Gone on a case, eh?” There
was a moment of silence. “Then I must get someone
else."
Again he jabbed fiercely at the push-button. In the
hall sounded hasty, excited footsteps.
“Right here, Mrs. MacTurk!” commanded Annisford.
He turned to Laura at last. She still stood like a
statue, uncomprehending.
A man's voice came to them from the hall.
"Is that you, Winright?”
Then:
“Annisford !” The cry burst from the newcomer's


20 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
lips. "What has happened? Did you reach him in
time?"
"Doctor Chalmers! The very man I've been trying
to reach.”
Already the stout little doctor was kneeling beside his
patient.
"Mr. Winright telephoned me less than ten minutes
ago.” As he spoke, he felt and listened, his florid face
intent.
Silence dwelt in the room. Laura, relinquishing Annis-
ford's arm, sank into a chair. With the gaze of one
fascinated, she watched the physician at his work. Her
lips parted in a soundless question.
"He told me"—the doctor worked on-"told me he
wanted to live-till Laura came—he had a message —”.
Laura shivered. Chalmers, looking up at last, re-
luctantly faced her. He shook his head.
"That was ten minutes ago, Miss Winright, . , and
I am ten minutes too late.”


CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS
had takast midnio Sford
In the living-room at Castle Sunset, George Annisford
sat alone before the fire. It was now past midnight. In
the emergency, the young man had taken command and
possession of the place and ordered things as he saw fit,
promptly and with decision as was his nature.
Laura was in no condition to direct affairs, and Tom,
whom Annisford was trying to call by long distance tele-
phone, could not in any event reach Maitland Port till
next day.
The tragedy had jolted George, and he knew it must
have jolted Laura. Annisford had no great amount of
imagination, but it needed no imagination for him to
realize how Laura must feel. The more he thought, the
sorrier he was for her.
He filled his pipe, and lit it with a coal from the grate.
The fumes of nicotine would help shut out the harrowing
aspect of the tragedy. Annisford wanted to shut it out.
It was too blamed bad, but-well, it was done now and
couldn't be helped. There was no use allowing oneself
to feel tough about it. So mused Annisford.
He rose, and half closed the double doors. Across the
hall in the unlit parlour, Adam Winright lay under a white
coverlet. “It's too blamed bad,” repeated Annisford,
and drew one door tight. Then he went back to the
fire.
As he did so, the telephone summoned him to the far
end of the hall.
21


22 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
This, mused Annisford, must be Tom, calling from
Detroit. He was right. It took some moments to get
the connection. Annisford, however, did not trouble to
turn on any light. With businesslike directness he told
Tom what had happened.
From the other end of the wire came a choking sob,
and a long, tragic silence.
"See here, Tom," urged Annisford, "there's no blamed
use buckling. You've simply got to keep up. Laura went
all to pieces, of course; it'll need all your pluck and
mine to get her back to cheerfulness. Just put Macey
in charge at the store, and come right down here on the
first train. Let's see—you can't get in till seven to-
morrow morning? That'll be all right. I'll have Nick
Ross meet you. Now, hustle and get ready."
Action, he knew—any kind of action—would divert
Tom's attention from the tragedy itself. Keep him busy,
and the thing would work out gradually. Tom now in-
sisted on asking questions. Annisford held back nothing.
Then he went back to the fire.
Laura's collapse was natural, she being a woman; but
he had not expected Tom to buckle and cry like that.
Why, when the Colonel, his own father, died-it was
heart failure, and all happened in a moment-he had
just said, between gasps, “George, boy, when we meet
again I'll have a heluva lot to tell you.” And George
had replied, "Save me an earful, anyway." That was
all there was to it. He had travelled a lot, had George
Annisford; he had never cried at railway stations; and
this journey was only a bit longer than the others. If
folks would only remember that!
Annisford re-lit his pipe, which had gone out, and
glanced at the clock on the mantel. From over town came
the deep tones of a bell.
“One-two!”


THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS
23
Adam Winright would never hear that again! Annis-
ford couldn't help that reflection. But he tried assiduously
to narcotize it into the background of his mind.
The door bell jangled.
The household were all asleep, except perhaps old Mrs.
MacTurk. Annisford went to the door.
"Oh!” he ejaculated; and, without enthusiasm, ad-
mitted Doctor Chalmers.
"I couldn't sleep,” explained the ruddy-faced doctor,
"So I decided I'd come over and sit up a while with you.”
He let Annisford take his hat, and himself settled in
Annisford's chair.
Annisford drew up another chair, and resumed his
pipe. He glanced once or twice at Chalmers. He did
not know Chalmers well. As a boy, he had spent much
time in Maitland Port; but in recent years, except for
flying visits, the management of the business at Detroit
had pretty well monopolized his time.
"You got word to Tom?" asked the doctor, presently.
“Yes. He was awfully cut up. He's coming down
first thing in the morning."
"How is Miss Winright?"
“She's asleep. I made them all turn in."
Annisford looked hard at the physician. Doctors, he
mused, didn't usually call on the patients they had lost,
particularly in the dead of night. Doctors usually were
able to sleep when they found time for it. Even to un-
observant Annisford it presently became evident that,
whether or not the alleged sleeplessness were a subterfuge,
the stout little doctor had come with the deliberate pur-
pose of asking questions. The most obvious course was
to answer everything, and to volunteer whatever addi-
tional information seemed apropos. This George Annis-
ford did.
He asked questions on his part, not out of curiosity,


24
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
for he never was curious, but from sheer natural friendli-
ness.
"Winright always puzzled me," ventured Chalmers.
"I probably knew him better than did most people in
Maitland Port, and I can't say that I really knew him.”
“He struck most people as odd? Eh?”.
“That's just it. He kept to himself. He made no
friends in Maitland Port. He didn't want them.”
"Hardly.".
“I'd almost have thought”—Chalmers spoke very de-
liberately—“that he came here for the sake of solitude.
He kept to his grounds, to his house, to that one room
where he died.” His words held an interrogative note.
“I never imagined him ill.”
"Nor I. He seemed never better in his life."
"Yet you said heart failure?”
Doctor Chalmers silently scratched his head. Annis-
ford filled the gap in the conversation.
"Wouldn't there be previous symptoms? Occasional
light attacks?” His manner was indifferent.
The doctor eyed him queerly.
"I'm puzzled.” His tone was self-accusatory. "I
must have been careless. Tom did tell me his father
seemed ill. That was three or four weeks ago. Then
Winright himself came to me. 'Is there anything the
matter with me?' he asked. I examined him, and do you
know, I found not the slightest trace of heart trouble,
or anything else? He was sound as a bell. So I thought,
anyway—for of course it is heart failure. My examina-
tion then must have been at fault.” The firelight lit his
ruddy, troubled face. “We all make mistakes, Annisford.
If I'd only been a bit more careful then-
His voice faded.
“Tom took it terribly hard," put in Annisford.
Chalmers nodded.


THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS - 25
“He must have known he was dying?”
“Yes. He knew. I was just leaving my office when
the 'phone rang, and my car was waiting outside. I
had a little trouble cranking, but I reached here inside
ten minutes."
"He wanted to see Laura ?”
"Evidently. Apparently he thought she might not
come till morning, and hoped to last through the night.
That's a man for you”—the doctor's voice rang. “Not
a bit of terror in his tone, Annisford—he spoke just as
coolly as though he were asking for a cup of coffee.”
“What did he say?"
"What he said was so utterly out of the ordinary. "I
didn't understand at first. One doesn't look for a man
to say such things so calmly. Please repeat that I told
him. Then I got his words: 'Chalmers, this is Adam
Winright. I am dying. Please come at once. I must
live till Laura comes. I have a message for her.' I said,
'I'm coming'—"
"Then he must have hung up the receiver and crossed
to the table and sat down—"
"And died immediately."
The flame in the grate leapt up, kindling the doctor's
troubled face.
"He was quite alone?" he questioned.
Annisford nodded. “Yes. Katie went out at seven,
and Turkey Bird spent the evening gossiping with Fan
Sifton. You know Fan Sifton, the unclaimed treasure
with the wheezy old setter? Why, I can remember when
Fan,"
“Sh!"
Annisford stared in surprise.
"Did you hear that?" demanded Chalmers.
“What?"
"I'm positive I heard someone at those doors.”


26
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Nonsense.” Annisford's tone was careless. “Why,
I can remember when I was a kid and Fan Sifton"
“There it goes again," insisted the doctor. "Like
something choking."
Yet he made no move to investigate. Annisford gazed
a moment at the ruddy-faced little man. He was horribly
frightened. With a careless laugh the young fellow went
to the door, and glanced up and down the hall.
“Nothing doing," he reported, cheerily.
Then he fancied a glimmer of light at the end of the
hall. “Excuse me, doctor. I'll investigate.” He stepped
boldly enough down the hall toward the Ghost Room.
Neither non-existent ghosts nor real dead folk had any
terrors for him.
Sure enough, the library was a glow of light. Annis-
ford eyed the electrolier. "Did I turn that light on
when I was telephoning Tom?” he asked himself. “No,
I did not. I'm sure I did not. But I must have."
The matter was inconsequential, anyway. Annisford
snapped off the light, and turned back toward the living-
room. At the foot of the stair he glanced up; then
ascended, none too quietly, to the landing above. Laura's
door was closed. He listened a moment, heard nothing,
imagined nothing; finally, descending, rejoined the doctor
before the fire. .
"I guess you're nervous to-night,” he adjudicated.
Once more from over town came the notes of the
deep-toned bell.
“One-two-three !"
Annisford again filled his pipe.
“He could have deliberately concealed some of the
symptoms from me," said the doctor. “It must have
been that. Yet, if he wished to conceal his illness, why
did he seek an examination at all?” He puzzled. “It is
all of a part with his general reputation, though.”


THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS 27
"You Maitland Port people thought him eccentric?"
"Decidedly—or deep."
"He wasn't eccentric in business. Of course," con-
ceded Annisford, "he was reticent. He never discussed his
private affairs with me, though I was the one man nearest
to him. Yet he was a careful, methodical, capable business
man from corns to bald spot. If he wanted a letter of
ten years ago, he could place his fingers on it in ten
seconds. He could tell to a cent how much we had in
any line of stock, or how much were each day's sales and
profits in each department. That store of ours is organ-
ized to the hilt. Adam Winright put in the first time-
clocks in Detroit, I guess; everyone from the president
down had to punch them. There's a room full of the
stuff at Detroit right now; I can tell you when every
employé was on and off for ten years back. You can
see my record, and Tom's, and Mr. Winright's own
record. Adam Winright was a miracle of system.
Maybe he overdid it. Of course he didn't mingle in
Detroit society, or mix in politics-no call for that, you
know. He was just a business man-hadn't another
interest."
"Except Laura.”
"Another interest in Detroit, I mean. She was here.”
"That always puzzled us,” explained Chalmers. “Why
he lived in Detroit and the children in Maitland Port,
and he so rarely saw them. I used to puzzle it over when
I was younger. I'm inquisitive, you know. The children
made a few friends, but when they got old enough to
mix in our society, Tom went to Detroit, and Laura
abroad. Some people used to say Mr. Winright was
hard up, but I always thought he must be comfortably
fixed. He”--the doctor hesitated—"he'd be worth all of
fifty thousand, I should say? Oh, thirty thousand,
anyway?"


28 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
George Annisford almost laughed. Only the thought
of Adam Winright across the hall muzzled his mirth.
"Fifty thousand! Why, Adam Winright was a mil-
lionaire twice over!"
Chalmers stared.
“Who gets the money ?” he blurted.
"I don't know. I've never seen his will. Of course
he'll have one. If he hadn't, the money would go half
to Laura and half to Tom.”
"But his brother, Harold ?”
Annisford gazed oddly at the physician.
"Harold? Oh, Harold died years ago.” What Annis-
ford thought he knew, he was complacently sure of.
"Winright told you so, didn't he?”
“He never told me much of anything."
They were silent a moment. A coal in the grate split,
with a loud report.
"What was that?”
Chalmers glanced suspiciously about him.
"Just that coal,” assured Annisford.
"No. There.” The doctor, springing up, pointed to-
ward the door. "Didn't you see something?"
Annisford laughed.
"Sit down. You're nervous. Did you ever hear
Turkey Bird tell about the ghost in the old mill back of
Dungannon? You know, folks driving by on dark nights
used to see blue lights flittering past the windows and—”
He broke off, grinning.
"What you saw was a shadow on the hall carpet. The
moonlight shines through the front window and there's
vines outside, and when the wind blows the shadow of
the vines shifts. As for Harold, he was drowned before
Mr. Winright married. I've heard he was a bad lot.
Guess the brothers didn't get along any too well. But
Harold was drowned years and years ago."


THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS
29
Chalmers fixed his gaze on the cheery fire.
"Mr. Winright will be buried at Detroit, beside his
wife, I suppose?”
It was Annisford's turn to stare into the fire. "Tom
will arrange all that,” he said at last. "He'll be here in
the morning. I must send the car for him.”
Catching up the scuttle, he deluged the fire with coal.
The cannel cracked noisily as it caught. Chalmers,
hunched in his chair, with fascinated gaze again sought
the gap in the double doors where he had fancied the
moving shadow.
"I heard someone.”
"It's only the wind in the trees.”
"No. Listen." Rising, he tip-toed toward the door;
but halted half-way, shuddering. “Can't you hear it?”
Annisford's lips parted in a laugh.
"Nonsense, doctor. You're just-"
He stopped short.
There was a gasp, a stifled cry, from the room where
the dead man lay; and then the sound of a heavy fall.
Annisford, slow to hear but instant to act, crossed the
hall and gripped the door-knob.
"It's locked !” he exclaimed.
Without hesitation, he flung his full weight against the
door. It gave, presently, with a crash. The room he had
left dark was now a blaze of light. Annisford glimpsed
the bier where the dead man lay, covered with a white
sheet; and then on the floor beside it a crumpled little
heap of pink and white.
He knelt.
"Laura !” he cried. “Wake up, Laura !”


CHAPTER III
THE PRINT OF A HAND
The first thing that fixed itself in Laura Winright's
mind was the monotonous beat of waves upon a sandy
beach.
She ran along the shore, the waves lapping her bare
feet; and before her ran old Adam Winright, always just
out of reach, laughing when she cried out to him to carry
her.
The pursuit seemed unending. In darkness she ran,
yet despite the darkness she saw him clearly, just beyond
her reach.
At last she cried, and stretched out her hands.
Then she saw the sunlight.
A dusty sunbeam streamed through tall windows. Then
she was not on the beach, after all. She was in her own
old room at Castle Sunset. She felt terribly tired after all
the running, and wished she could lie down and go to
sleep.
A long while afterward she realized that she was in
bed. She had been sleeping, and felt not at all rested.
After all, she had not been running. That was merely
a horrid dream.
The beat of the waves was reality, though. It came
from Lake Huron at the foot of the hill. From where
she lay she could see the sunshine again, and the waving
tops of cedars that fringed the hillcrest.
Then she saw the nurse, and knew that she must have
30


THE PRINT OF A HAND
31
been ill. She felt tired anyway. There was a vague
something that must be attended to at once, but-
She woke after a long time, in the dark. Then she
remembered having caught herself walking in her sleep.
She had heard some talk betwixt George Annisford and
Doctor Chalmers. Then-it seemed that there was some-
thing she had lost, which must be found.
In the morning, when there was light, she would find it.
Again she woke, and saw the nurse standing between
her and the light.
Perhaps the nurse would remember what she herself
had forgotten.
"Nurse!"
The nurse came in swift silence, with a sweet smile.
"You are better, dear.”
Her uniform was primly starchy, but her voice sug-
gested the soft rustle of silks.
“Yes, I'm better," agreed Laura; and forgot her
question.
It was not before the next day that her clearing mind
again essayed the question to which she seemed subcon-
sciously driven.
"Nurse," she asked, "how long is it ?"
"It's only a few days. You'll lie quiet, now, and rest
-rest-
Her voice trailed off, suggesting to a tired spirit a
thought of welcome repose. Laura, yielding to the im-
pulse of the stronger mind, slipped back again into forget-
fulness. Yet this time she struggled though vainly for
mastery of herself.
Vain day seemed to follow vain day, with the insistent
question in the back of her mind still unasked. For hours
at a time the girl lay weak, trying to piece out in her
mind what of the stuff she remembered was actual fact
and what was mere horrid phantasmagoria. George was


32
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
in it. This nurse was in it. Old Mrs. MacTurk wa
in it, her gnarled face anxiously wrinkled. And Tom
was in it-stately, gallant, courageous Tom. Her hear
warmed to him. She could always count on Tom.
"Where is Mr. Annisford?” she found herself asking
the nurse.
"In Detroit. But your brother is here."
Laura lay quiet. Doggedly she fought off the inclina-
tion to sleep again.
The nurse's hair, under her little white cap, was dark
-black, almost-yet seen in the sunlight it turned to
fine gold. Her eyes were brown. Yes, unmistakably,
they were brown. Yet when she smiled, they lit.
No, she was not an ordinary nurse.
“Nurse," the girl began hesitantly, "the man—you
know, the man who was with my father? Who was he?”
“There was no one with him, dear.”
Laura made no immediate answer. The nurse drew
her rocker close to the bed, and, taking the patient's hand
in hers, thoughtfully studied the lines.
“I know you now," said Laura at last. “You're Glory
Adair."
She talked to keep awake. Anything was preferable
to being lulled back into that clinging, horrible forget-
fulness.
She had been weak before; now she began to feel
strong, and rebellious in her strength. Glory Adair looked
at her questioningly.
“Did you ever have your hand read?”
“No. I don't believe in palmistry.”
“Then I'll read your hand.”
Laura resented the offer just a little. Manifestly, the
nurse divined that her mind dwelt on other things; and
manifestly also, the nurse had decided to lure her into
chatter over non-essentials rather than leave her to brood.


THE PRINT OF A HAND 33
Yet she surrendered to the compelling brown eyes.
"You will make a quick recovery. I see no set-back.
In place of worry you will experience peace of mind and
comforting thoughts.”
"Bosh !” thought Laura. “Mental suggestion to meet
my case. No palm-reading at all.”
The nurse seemed to hesitate. “A mystery hangs over
you. I see a fair woman" .
Laura smiled. Had it not been for the tragic shadow
overhanging her, this travesty on the familiar stock-in-
trade of the fortune-teller would have sent her into peals
of laughter..
"You have lived in pleasant circumstances for years.
As a baby, though, you were not so happily circum-
stanced.”
"Anyone could guess that.” Laura's pessimism was
itself a hint of growing interest. "Father's business grew
from small beginnings. And—”
A glance from the brown eyes soothed her.
"Your mother is dead. You had one sister. She is
also dead.”
Evident error always compels contradiction.
“I never had a sister.”
"Your mother died when you were a baby," returned
the nurse. “Your sister died before you were born."
Her tone was pleasantly firm. “Your hand tells me of
that sister, and it is a witness I will believe against the
world.” Thoughtfully she studied the finger-tips, and
the mounts at the foot of each digit, and the fine, com-
plicated lines of the palm. “You are loving, impetuous,
quick to jump at conclusions"
"And my conclusions—are they right?”.
“Not always—not often—but, on rare occasions."
Laura felt slighted. The nurse purred on.
"Your life in Maitland Port has been very uneventful.


34
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Your hand shows no great emotional stress, though you
are capable of great emotions, of love and of sacrifice.
Intense self-sacrifice for a loved one." Her brown eyes,
gazing into distance, seemed to compass worlds that Laura
Winright could not see. “In recent years you have
travelled much, but for pleasure. Here”—she indicated
"a line is broken. You are in great danger. A cloud
hovers about you. It threatens you less than it threatens
others, but all the time it seems to follow you.”
She paused. Laura shivered.
The nurse noticed.
“There I've talked too much. You will lie quiet, now,
and rest-rest-rest—"
“I will not rest,” Laura breathed, rebelliously.
The nurse rose and crossed to the window. Laura
surrendered. Yet her fascinated eyes followed Glory
Adair. She was patiently disciplining her mind to think.
Next time she would not be beaten in her quest—no, not
even by a silky-voiced, steel-souled nurse.
She tried to piece things together. She had walked
in her sleep that night her father died, had found herself
in the lower hall, had heard George Annisford and Doctor
Chalmersyes, and then for some reason had gone to
the room where her father lay.
She did not remember leaving that room. She re-
membered nothing after that. Her illness must have
been from nervous shock. Very well, she felt stronger
now.
Yet there was a missing link somewhere in it all that
she could not place.
"Miss Adair,” she said next morning; and held up her
hands, the white palms uppermost. “Go on."
"I told you that you were loving and impetuous,” mur-
mured Miss Adair. “On occasion, too, you seem very
determined.”


THE PRINT OF A HAND
35
She smiled. Laura felt with sudden disappointment
that her palm reading had been merely jest.
"Everything you told me yesterday that was true you
could have learned from Doctor Chalmers. The things
you could not have learned from Doctor Chalmers were
- mistakes.” Laura softened the word that came first to
her lips.
"Lies, you mean?" Glory's tone was placid. "But
your hand tells no lies-neither does it make mistakes.
None whatever. It is a witness that can be trusted to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You
may so delude yourself that you will swear to a lie in
the witness box, firmly believing it the truth, but you
cannot delude your hand.”
She smiled in deprecation of her burst of earnestness.
Then she sat down beside the bed.
“Merely as a test,” she suggested, “let me repeat a few
things your hand tells me, that assuredly nobody in Mait-
land Port can know. You were not born in Maitland
Port, but a long distance away—perhaps in another coun-
try? You travelled much the first year of your life.
After that you lived in the same place many years? Tell
me, isn't that all true?”
From the patient's hand she lifted her eager, confident
gaze to the patient's face.
"No."
Glory sat dumfounded.
Laura Winright hastened to qualify.
"I was not born in Maitland Port. That is true. I
lived here many, many years, and never visited the store
at Detroit, even-just lived here with Tom and Mamma
Judy. She and old Angus-he's dead now-took care
of Castle Sunset; and Mamma Judy took care of me
after my mother died. I never saw my mother, to re-
member. Dad did not really live here till he retired, and


36
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Mr. Annisford became manager. You thought we were
queer, queer people, didn't you?”.
"Rather! And your mother?”
Laura did not answer.
For the first time in all her life the fact stood out
nakedly, that no one had told her of her mother, that all
she knew was by her own inference.
Glory Adair nodded ever so slightly. Her palm-
reading was not disproven.
“Doctor Chalmers,” she intervened, heroically, "said
you must not talk."
“Will it hurt me? Ask my hand.”
"I see no danger there-rather good. You have your
mind set on getting well; there is something you have
decided to do. What you think of doing, I can't tell. It
will baffle you a long time. Nevertheless, you may win.
You are very determined, Miss Winright."
· Laura felt her interest enhanced.
“But you're a nurse," she protested. "Scientific.
Exact. Are you really so superstitious as to believe in
palmistry?”
"I am not superstitious. I am sane. Palmistry is
not guess-work. It is science. For thousands of years
it has been studied. It is taught by regularly constituted
schools, and has its literature. It is quite logical. No
two natures in the world are precisely alike; nor are any
two hands. Why should not the lines of the palm furnish
a clue to the character ?”.
"But can you really tell the future—?”
Laura was all eagerness now. Glory Adair shook her
head.
"I can tell character. I can tell the past, to some extent.
As to the future, I can tell what you will do under any
given set of circumstances and whether you are likely


THE PRINT OF A HAND 37
to put yourself into those circumstances. You see, Laura
Winright, palmistry isn't just a slick trick. It's hard
work, if you practice it honestly. Then, it has its limita-
tions.”
She smiled.
"Some day you must see my collection of palms. I
have hundreds of them at the Barracks. You know, four
of us nurses room together and we've christened the
place the Barracks in honour of our quarters at the hos-
pital where we were novices. Palmistry's quite fascinat-
ing. I picked it up when I was training at the hospital.
First, I practiced with the girls, and then with the patients
-it helped to while away the dull hours when I was on
special with a convalescent. Then I started collecting
hand prints around town. I've every prominent man on
my list-"
"Including dad?”
"Yes, dear. I even bearded the lion in his den. He
was quite pleasant. I have your brother's print. I'd
have taken yours too, but you had just left for England.
I'll take it when you're a bit stronger. A little lamp-black
will make your hand quite legible.”
Laura thrilled.
"Are criminals really identified by their band-
prints ?”
"It's gospel. Sir Francis Galton in England reduced
it to a science. He claimed that the chance of the finger-
prints of two individuals being identical was less than one
in sixty-four billions. The finger-prints alone, mind you
-the mere tips. In South Africa the Kaffirs in the
mines are identified by their finger-prints. The Chinese
have used thumb-print signatures in banking for centuries.
In the Farrow murder case at Deptford—I'm jumping
from China to England—the Strattons were identified


38
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
and convicted by their finger-prints on a cash box. There
are scores and scores of cases-
Mentally, Laura Winright groped her way to the light.
“Could you read a hand-print just as well as the hand
itself?” Her tone was animated.
"Not quite so well. The nails and the back of the
hand help in reading, and the print doesn't show them.
The little lines of the palm modify the main lines, and
often make all the difference in the world, and a print
can't always show them, either. Still”-her brow
wrinkled—“with a hand-print one can at least try.”
Laura's mind leapt back to the night of her home-
coming. Convulsively she struggled up in bed. The
nurse caught her.
"Don't, dear. You must lie down.”
The patient surrendered.
“I don't need to sit up," she whispered. "But I can.
And-soon, I must."
"Did you want anything, dear?"
Laura recollected herself.
“Yes. Please go to that clothes closet”-she indicated
a corner of the room. "I think you'll find a pink kimono.
Feel in the pocket.”
The nurse obeyed without comment. Laura heard with
relief the distant crackling of paper.
The nurse, returning, drew away.
“No-I'm not asleep.” Laura opened her eyes. “You
have it-a telegram. That's good. I was afraid it might
be lost. Tell me, Miss Adair”—her tone grew appealing
-"tell me about that man. The man whose hand-print
is there on that telegram.”
Miss Adair sat down again. She gazed at Laura Win-
right oddly, as though fearing her palm-reading had
carried her too far. Then she turned the telegram over.
The message read:


THE PRINT OF A HAND
39
Albany, N. Y., May 25, 1915.
Adam Winright,
Maitland Port, Ontario.
Arrived early Wednesday morning. Coming right
through to Maitland Port.
Laura.
That telegram Laura Winright had despatched from
Albany the morning of the day Adam Winright died.
So much was obvious.
Miss Adair turned over the yellow paper. On the back
was a black smear that, closely regarded, defined itself
as the broken impress where some grimy hand had
clutched the paper. Laura watched the nurse's face,
expectantly.
"Man's hand-young not over thirty-five-good
and bad-a singularly intricate mixture of good and bad.
Most people are that, aren't they, Miss Winright? But
here the good is very good, and the bad-well, it's un-
commonly bad.” She paused. “It's a pity the print is
so incomplete, dear. Couldn't you get me a better one?”
"Surely you can tell me more !"
"I'll try.” The fair brow puckered. “Ups and downs
-vicissitudes-always trying-much travel-healthy-
outdoor man, I should say—strong-self-reliant. You
are disappointed, Laura Winright?”
Laura was disappointed. There was no shadow on
this impressionistic picture Glory Adair conjured from
the lines; a fighting soul battling against difficulties to the
mastery-a strong, hardy, self-reliant man—such a man
was close to her own ideal.
Glory's brows again puckered. She seemed to have
more to say, yet hesitant to say it.
"I am inclined to think, I hope this won't offend-


CHAPTER IV
THE MAN IN GREY
Tom Winright's glance questioned the nurse.
“Delirious ?” he whispered.
Glory Adair felt her patient's wrist.
"Pulse good! Not a trace of fever.” She smiled on
Laura, too shrewd to attempt to hold in this pent up
volcano of feeling. “You won't fret yourself, dear.
Just tell us, quietly, all about it.”
So Laura, with occasional pauses, told them.
"I must have walked in my sleep that night,” she in-
sisted.
She recollected nothing till she found herself in the
Ghost Room, dressed in the pink kimono. There on the
library table lay the telegram with its black smear. She
had heard voices in the living-room, the voices of Annis-
ford and Chalmers.
"I couldn't help listening," she protested. “I heard
him—the doctor-say that father had not been ill. Every-
body that day had told me the same thing—father had
never mentioned being ill. Then there was that telephone
message father sent the doctor just before he died-do
you remember it, Tom? Did George tell you it?”
Tom slowly repeated :
"Chalmers, this is · Adam Winright. I am dying.
Please come at once. I must live till Laura comes. I
have a message for her.”
Laura shivered. She was living again what followed.
41


42
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Glory Adair gripped her hand encouragingly. She would
save her patient the telling.
“This is what you thought, Laura Winright? That
hand-print was made by a man who held the telegram
after the envelope was opened ?"
"Yes, yes.”
“You see, the telegram would be delivered to Mr. Win-
right, himself, in a sealed envelope. He must sign for
it before breaking the seal. He would have it with him
in the library. If that hand-print were not your father's,
it must be the print of another man's hand; and that
other man would be with your father when he died—”
“Yes, and would know how he died?” cried Laura.
"And it was not my father's hand-print. That was why
they found me in the parlour. I had to find out the truth
at once, that very night. I could not wait till morning.
That hand-print was not my father's.”
She sank back, panting.
"Tom! Where are you going?”
Tom turned, magnificently deliberate. As ever, he did
the right thing in the right way.
“I am going to telegraph at once for a private detective.
Sister, I can't believe this! Poor old dad! But, if there's
such a man on earth as you say, I'll hunt him down.
For a case like this,” he went on, practically, “the ordinary
police are useless. They haven't the time. They haven't
the skill. And we don't want publicity.” To admiring
Laura, his quick mind seemed instantly to grasp every
detail of the situation. “I'll send for Harry Burnville.
He's the very man we want."
He went out.
“I'm sorry!" whispered the nurse.
Laura's blue eyes questioned her.
"How can I help you, now? But surely, you don't
believe it, anyway!"


THE MAN IN GREY
43
"I do."
"How could he be murdered? Not a sign of violence,
not a wound, not even a scratch-"
"I know." Yet Laura Winright's tone was stubborn.
"Oh, yes, now I remember, there was a scratch-just
there—on his hand-see!" She held up her own hand,
indicating betwixt the first and second fingers. "I saw
it."
Glory Adair shrugged her shoulders.
"Sh! Sh!" she soothed.
Tom Winright was back inside half an hour.
“I used the long distance 'phone,” he said. “It's
quicker. Burnville has another case on, but he'll be here
Saturday morning, or maybe Friday night. We're losing
very little time.”
His manner was impressively self-congratulatory.
A thought came to Laura.
“There must be no-no publicity ?”
“None whatever. Even Annisford won't know Burn-
ville's real business. You see, sister mine, poor dad
doesn't seem to have left any will. He never mentioned
one, but I always presumed that-as a practical business
man, you know-he had made one. After a casual look
the morning after he died, Annisford and I locked the
library till we could make a thorough search. It has
stayed locked ever since. We were waiting for you to
get better. Now”-wisely—“Mr. Harry Burnville is
ostensibly a lawyer's clerk, representing Airth & Kinzie,
attorneys, of Detroit, sent down here to make a proper
search for the will, and, if there isn't any, to draft the
necessary papers."
He lifted his eye-brows wisely. Laura realized that
it was for such a man as Tom Winright to wrestle with
these problems, and not for her, an impetuous, inexperi-
enced girl.


44
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"You think of everything, Tom!” she exclaimed.
After Tom had gone, Glory Adair glanced up, mus-
ingly.
"Saturday, or, maybe, Friday. This is Wednesday.
This Burnville has a smart record as a private detective.
He did some fine work in the Morand murder case.
There were a couple of jewel robberies that he cleared
up, too, very neatly. He's not a fool, even if he is a
detective."
Doctor Chalmers on Thursday morning pronounced
Laura much better.
"You look as though you were taking a new interest
in life, Miss Winright,” he jested. “You can get up to-
day."
When the doctor had gone, Laura for the first time
noticed a change in the nurse's manner.
Miss Adair grew restless. She fingered the telegram
nervously. More than once she shot curious glances at
her patient.
"I'm going down town,” she burst forth, suddenly.
“Mamma Judy can look after you."
And she was gone like a shot.
Mrs. MacTurk took Glory's place at the bedside. "I'm
quite well,” protested Laura Winright. “I can look after
myself. I don't need waiting on.” But Judith MacTurk
settled herself down, none the less.
She was a tall, straight Scotchwoman with an old,
gnarled face. In the earlier Maitland Port days, the
population of the little lake town was all Scotch; and
Judith MacTurk was then of the Scotch Scotchy. When
she came with her husband, Angus, to take charge of
Castle Sunset, she was past forty, now she was in the
sixties, and old Angus was dead these many years. Her
gnarled face was kindly; her Scotch burr had smoothed


THE MAN IN GREY
45
a bit; she was a second-nay, an only--mother to Laura
Winright.
“Sitting there, you make me think of old times, Mamma
Judy,” said Laura. "I–I feel just like a little girl-
yes, a tiny baby ”.
The old woman dabbed a fistful of blue apron into one
eye.
“Nae ye mind,” she urged, kindly. "Cheer up, and
I'll tell ye a ghost story.”
Laura smiled. These ghost stories were olden diver-
sions. She had shivered at them once. Now, she enjoyed
them. She lay listening intently to stories she had heard
thousands of times before, told in the rasping Scotch
voice that the years had made lovely to her.
"But, Mamma Judy,” she argued, gently, “Miss Adair
says there's no such thing as a ghost.”
:-“That nursie body!" Judith MacTurk rose in af-
fronted dignity. “Which shows she nae kens muckle
beggin' her pardon, but young folk aye rush in where
angels fear to tread. Ghosts! Ghosts! Me name's
Judith MacTurk.” Her tone breathed defiance. "Be
there a ghost in a' the country Judith MacTurk doesna
ken? Belike I never told ye, Laura lassie, o' auld Jim
Bailey's ghost what haunts ower Saltford way, which he
hanged himsel when his wife ran awa' wi' anither man,
an' noo he's waitin' till she cooms back, an' then he'll
creep up behind her in the dark an' put his icy
fingers aboot her neck an' juist squeeze an' squeeze an'
squeeze”
A plaintive squeal came from the shadowy recesses
beyond the door. Laura started. .
"Oh, ye ninny!” scorned Judith MacTurk. “What
ghost wad bother his empty skull wi' a soft mushmelon
of a girl like ye, Katie Sparrow, wha forgets her work
tae snoop aroond corners? An' Laura, lass, there do be


46 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
an Indian ghost up tae the Black Hole what's been kickin'
oop dog there for thousands o' years. Many says there's
nae sic ghost, but Judith MacTurk kens him wi' her own
eyes. An' in the auld mill back o’ Dungannon there's a
tall ghost wha' gropes aboot the mill at midnight a'
wrappit in blue flame. Oh, Judith MacTurk kens a' these
ghosts an' mair—there's nae a ghost in a' the country
Judith MacTurk doesna ken, an' that doesna ken Judith
MacTurk. Now, be ye gane, Katie Sparrow.”
Katie Sparrow shivered, but stayed. Laura Winright
smiled. For her, all this spectral rigmarole was an oft-
repeated story. Glory Adair, were she here, would not
like it; Glory Adair would send Mrs. MacTurk scuttling
back to the basement with ears tingling. But Glory Adair
was not here; and Judith MacTurk was, and in most
reminiscent mood.
“It wasna trouble killed your puir father.” Mamma
Judy's tone died to a whisper. “It was the ghost.”
Laura stiffened into attention. She caught a new,
strange note in the ancient rigmarole. This, too, Glory
would have vetoed.
"What do you mean? Tell me, Mamma Judy—tell
me, quick!"
“Sh! Listen ye. Many's the time Judith MacTurk,
being upstairs, has heard below folk movin' aboot-the
sort o' folk ye can see through, an' that passes through
locked doors"
Laura, shivering, hungered for more.
At any moment Glory might return, might interrupt
before she could learn all the old woman had to say.
Glory thought her suspicions a delusion, to be entertained
but not believed, like any other delusion of a sick girl;
and Glory would not allow this to go on. To Laura, it
was no longer a hieroglyphic of ghosts that Mrs. Mac-
Turk spread out. Did her father, she mused, have an


THE MAN IN GREY
47
evening visitor who came often and stayed late? Was
that why, through so many years, he had so often shut
himself apart in the library and at times forbidden his
own children to interrupt him there?
"Oh, but, Mamma Judy,” she urged, “old houses at
night are often full of just such noises. Castle Sunset
was always that way. I was young and slept through
it all."
“Nae, nae, lass.” Judith MacTurk's mournful tone
sounded a dirge for ghost-hunting opportunities that
Laura Winright had lost. "It wasna always that way.
Which Judith MacTurk, when she first came, thought,
' 'Tis the fine hoose for a ghost tae haunt'-an' many's
the time at midnight Judith MacTurk went hunting for
ghosts upstairs an' doon. Yet never she saw nor heard
ane till Mr. Winright came home to stay—just when ye
went awa, Laura, lass. Then she, Judith MacTurk, did
hear it. It wasna like anyone walkin'—not a step, not
Mr. Winright's step. It was more a shufflin', draggin',
crawlin'. Which Judith MacTurk askit him of it. 'It's
a tonic ye need, Judith,' says he. “I'll have Chalmers
put ye oop one.' Tonic !” The gnarled face widened
in a beaming smile. "From that hour life was livin' for
Judith MacTurk. Nae need o tonic when she had a
ghost i the hoose wi' her, even though she never set
eyes on him, but juist heard him draggin' aboot.”
“Go on, Mamma Judy!” urged Laura, breathless.
The old woman's chatter terrified her, yet she must
know. And every moment Glory Adair might return.
Laura saw, not the fringe of cedars and the blue sky
beyond her window, but the queer, lonely past that had
peopled that old Ghost Room with affrighting shadows.
"That was after I went away? And then?”.
"They say there's nae will. Ah, but there was. An'
Judith MacTurk's name is signed to it, an' Katie


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Sparrow's, too, as witness. Katie Sparrow! Katie
Sparrow! Coom forth.” The trembling, fascinated maid
obeyed. "Werena we a-sittin' doonstairs ae nicht?
Didna ye hear a draggin' an' crawlin' in the room juist
ben? Didna Judith MacTurk tell ye, there was the ghost
again? Didna ye hear steps, coomin' doon the basement
stair? Didna the very door open beside ye-?"
Katie, shivering, buried her face in the coverlet of
Laura's bed.
"In cooms puir Maister Winright. He holds oot a
paper. 'Will ye witness this, Judith, an' ye, Katie?' says
he. 'It's me will.' An' he signed an' we baith signed,
an' ye a-shiverin' a' the time so ye could scarce write."
Laura heard or fancied a step outside. The old woman
held up a gnarled forefinger.
“That nursie body says there's nae sic thing as a ghost,
Laura, lass? But if there's nae ghost i’ the hoose, wha
tookit the will? The last word's spoke."
The door opened.
In came Glory Adair, frowning.
“Oh! The last word's spoke, is it? Laura will feel
relieved, I'm sure." Anxiously she felt her patient's
pulse. "How in Heaven's name Laura stood your rubbish
I don't know. Go away—I'll look after her. And I'll
never trust you with her again.”
"I-I enjoyed it," protested Laura Winright. "Why
did you interrupt us?”
Mamma Judy stamped defiantly downstairs. Glory
Adair sat down in the rocker, gazing at Laura all the
while as though asking herself a question. She took
the patient's hand in hers and studied the lines. That,
Laura knew, was also a question.
"It can't hurt you,” she announced with decision.
“There's only one thing can hurt you, and that is holding
you back. You're determined to go ahead. It's written


50
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"I thought perhaps the print might have been made
before the telegram left the office. Perhaps the blank
was smeared before the message was written? I sug-
gested that. It seems, though, the blanks are padded, and
this was from the top of a fresh pad, and there was no
substance within reach to cause such a smear. More,
the clerk would not have used a dirty blank. There was
nothing in the telegraph office, either, to cause the pin-
pricks."
"What pin-pricks?”
Glory Adair handed her the telegram. Laura saw a
couple of tiny punctures that went clear through the yellow
paper.
The two young women gazed at one another.
Laura felt that the nurse had caught the wireless mes-
sage of her thoughts. Her mind went straying per-
sistently to the locked Ghost Room, standing now just
as it stood that night.
“The Ghost Room is still locked?”
Glory answered nothing.
"I can walk-can't I?”
Eagerness, half-veiled, lit the brown eyes.
"We might find something—"
Laura's suggestion trailed into silence, but she pulled
herself to her elbow.
"Bring me the kimono, please."
She was not waiting for Harry Burnville to investigate.
Glory Adair deliberated a moment. Then, with a gesture
of mock resignation, she crossed to the clothes closet.
"If Doctor Chalmers finds this out, he'll let me go,"
she said. "My professional reputation will be ruined.
I'll never get another case.”
"He won't find out."
They descended the dark stair, and turned down the


CHAPTER V
THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR
That same mid-afternoon, Tom Winright received a
telephone message. He went immediately in search of
the chauffeur, Nick Ross. The chauffeur was nowhere
to be found. Ultimately Tom took the car out himself,
and drove direct to the leading hotel, where he enquired
for Mr. Harry Burnville.
The bell-boy escorted him to Mr. Burnville's room,
overlooking the Square. He found Mr. Burnville
engaged in an elaborate brushing up.
"I beat the schedule more than a day, Winright. Man-
aged to clean up that other case on the double-quick.
I'll be with you in ten seconds."
He was of medium height, strongly built and dark.
His clothes were natty and up-to-the-minute; his manner
was quick and decisive. His gold-rimmed glasses and
alert air belied the professional detective. He seemed
rather a shrewd lawyer or a wide-awake metropolitan
reporter.
Tom regarded him apologetically.
"I'm sorry to bring you here on a wild-goose chase,
Burnville."
"Eh? Then I'm not to have a run for your money ?”
Having eliminated the dust and grime of his railroad
journey to the least infinitesimal speck, the detective pro-
ceeded to brush his curly hair to the exact line of parting.
So doing, he asked questions.
52


THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR 53
shock. Traming the U. ALI
“So this is all supposition, based upon a belated tele-
gram and an accidental hand-print?”.
Tom smiled.
“And nerves."
"Your sister's nerves ?"
Tom Winright nodded.
"Just home from England, you know, Burnville. All
the strain of war-time there, and then running the U-boat
gauntlet, and then then this shock. My father and
Laura were immensely fond of one another. She was
the baby, you know. I'd like you to come down right
after dinner-"
"Why not now?” Burnville's manner was brisk. "A
scent's never warmer for waiting. Just a minute, Tom."
He spoke with the familiarity of close acquaintance. “A
line on your household, please? Your mother—"
"Died when Laura was a baby.”
"Who keeps house?”
"Mrs. MacTurk. You've heard Annisford refer to
Turkey Bird? She's it. We call her Mamma Judy."
"A Scotch widow of uncertain age?"
"And believes religiously in ghosts. Her favourite
diversion is terrifying little Katie Sparrow, the maid."
“Katie Sparrow, eh? Both Maitland Port folks?”
Tom assented.
"You spend very little time in Maitland Port?"
"Precious little. I prefer Woodward Avenue to The
Square. Besides, there's the store.”
Burnville discarded a collar and cuffs that to a casual
eye presented no hint of soiling, and dived into the depths
of his suit-case.
“Anyone else in the household ?”
"Since Laura's illness, we've had a graduate nurse in
attendance-a Miss Adair."
""Maitland Port girl?”


54
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Another nod.
“Ever with you in Mr. Winright's time?”
"No."
Burnville carefully adjusted his tie, and scrutinized his
shiny linen.
"Then this Miss Adair-does not signify?”
"No."
The detective gave the tips of his black moustache a
twirl, and studied the effect in the mirror.
“Very well.” He turned to the door. "Do it now,
Tom—that's the word. By the way'-as, glancing
through the lobby window, he noticed the car—"any
charioteer?”
“Yes—drat his hide!” Tom Winright warmed. “I
can never locate the fellow when I want him. His name's
Nick Ross, and he rooms over the garage and is always
pottering about with some sort of invention."
"Um!” Burnville took his seat. “You needn't break
the speed laws to oblige me.”
"There's no hurry!" Tom's tone was biting. “You'll
discover just as much a year from now as you will this
afternoon-which is nothing. But, remember"-his
cynical irritation vanished in a flash-"no matter what
I think of the case, I want you to probe it to the bottom.
If there is a crime-which I can't believe I want it
brought to light. Just because your employer has his
own private opinions, Burnville, is no reason why you
should let your enquiry grow perfunctory."
“Trust me!"
Burnville whipped out his note-book.
"I must see this doctor-Chalmers, did you say?"
"I'll stop there, if you like.”
“Do."
The call upon Doctor Chalmers consumed ten minutes.
In Chalmerseyes Burnville was just what Tom repre-


THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR 55
sented him, an attorney's clerk from Detroit, come to
Maitland Port to search formally for the will. Of a
will, Chalmers knew nothing, though he was one of Win-
right's few intimates in the town. He firmly adhered to
his diagnosis of the case. Burnville carefully avoided
any questioning that might lead to talk about town. In
Chalmers' eyes, however, there was nothing to indicate
foul play, or accident, or anything except the palpable
agency, heart failure.
"Nothing there," commented Burnville, as he resumed
his seat. "Tom, I believe you're right. Your sister has
this telegram?"
Tom nodded.
A few minutes later the car was at Castle Sunset.
"We will go straight to the library?" suggested Burn-
ville. “You have no objections?”.
“None.”
Tom led the way down the shadowy hall.
“You will find everything as it was that night,” he
explained, “or rather, the morning after. I took a casual
look through the room next morning. Then Annisford
came down, and we agreed to lock everything, and locked
the room has stayed ever since. I-"
He checked himself. The Ghost Room door stood
wide open. From within came a murmur of voices. The
detective frowned. Tom pushed into the room.
"Laura !" His tone was urbanely reproachful. He
frowned impressively on Miss Adair.
Laura Winright, ensconced in her father's armchair,
tried nervously to hide her slippered feet. The nurse
stood studying the ashes in the grate. She turned, very
deliberately, her brown eyes seeking the black-moustached
detective in the background.
“Mr. Burnville, I'm sure?” she purred.
Tom frigidly introduced them.


56 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Of Detroit?” Miss Adair smiled brightly. “The
same Harry Burnville who cleared up the Hazlett jewel
robbery so neatly? And that was splendid work, too,
in the Morand murder case! Say, I'm immensely
pleased.”
Burnville returned a bland smile, his annoyance quite
disarmed.
“I am surprised, Miss Adair, that my rather meagre
fame has penetrated to a spot so remote-if I may call
Maitland Port remote?”.
“Suit yourself, sir."
He nodded. “Just a minute, please,” he added, to
Tom. And, rapidly, with eyes alert, he moved up and
down the room, halting at last before a black box wired
in the corner. It looked somewhat like a telephone in-
strument, only that the black mouthpiece was surrounded
by a circle of tiny lenses.
"This chauffeur dabbles in inventions, Winright?"
"So I understand," returned Tom, frigidly. “I'm not
at all intimate with the fellow.”
Burnville drew a chair up to the table, and, sitting
down, slapped open his note-book.
"Miss Winright understands why I am here?"
"Completely."
"Very well. Miss Winright, if you feel equal to the
strain, will you kindly tell me?”
He bowed.
Laura summoned her reserves of courage. In a low,
clear voice she told Burnville of her home-coming, the
events that followed, the finding of the telegram.
"And your theory?”
She handed him the smeared yellow paper.
“That man was in the Ghost Room—this room with
my father."


THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR 57
Mr. Annister, notice much »,
at once.
There was a long silence. The detective made no com-
ment; merely nodded to Laura to proceed.
The girl went into further details—the receipt of the
telegram by the grey-bearded man, its belated delivery
to Adam Winright, his singular telephone message to
Doctor Chalmers. Then, to Burnville's questions, she
indicated where her father had sat, where Annisford had
stood; and re-enacted as far as she could remember the
scene in the Ghost Room.
Burnville's face grew hard.
“He sat at the table. Now, tell me, was there any sign
of disturbance of violence anything broken or dis-
arranged ?”
"I was too excited, too shocked, to notice much,"
faltered Laura. “George-Mr. Annisford-did not turn
on the light at once. No—I don't remember anything-
no sign of violence, I mean."
"Mr. Annisford agrees that there was none," com-
mented Burnville. “And Doctor Chalmers confirms that.
The appearances, so far as we have gone, render it im-
probable that any crime took place. Remember, Miss
Winright, I do not prejudge the case. But, as facts now
stand, we have the doctor's diagnosis of heart failure
the absence of any wound, or sign of violence and the
absence, furthermore, of any motive in the breast of
anyone."
Laura's face grew white. She felt that this man, an
expert in such matters, was tacitly pleading with her to
give up her futile quest. Her lips quivered. Then tears
came in reaction from the keen suspense.
"And that man?" Her tone was despairingly in-
sistent.
Burnville studied the telegram. He stared at it with
fascinated gaze. Thrice his lips parted, yet silently.


58
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
desion@gram relaxes
With a finger-tip he mechanically traced letters on the
yellow sheet, as men do when their minds are engrossed.
"That man?" insisted Laura. "That man in grey who
received this telegram from the messenger-that man
who afterward was in the Ghost Room with my father?”
"You believe they are the same man?”
Laura nodded. Burnville's tense face relaxed.
“A man might secure the telegram and open it and
again seal it, yet have no designs of violence. We have
not the envelope"
"We have its ashes, in the fire-place,” crisply inter-
polated Glory.
Burnville eyed her a moment.
“Presumably, Miss Winright,” he went on, "a man
who would resort to forgery to secure a message would
have a compelling interest in that message? Who would
be interested in this or any other of your father's tele-
grams?”
“No one," answered Laura. Tom echoed her.
Burnville pondered. Laura watched him keenly.
“You are asking, 'Why doesn't this man come forward
and tell what he knows?'”.
“That is precisely what I am asking, Mr. Burnville."
“Might it not be the case that he has nothing to tell;
that is, nothing concerning Mr. Winright's death?" He
paused. “Or, the hand-print may have been made at the
telegraph office ”
"No," flashed the nurse.
"You are sure?" Burnville smiled quizzically.
"I give you that much benefit of my independent en-
quiries."
Burnville turned to Laura.
"I attach very little importance to the hand-print,”
was his surprising comment.
Glory Adair intervened.


THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR 59
"To more than one man, a hand-print has meant
hanging."
"But not in this instance."
"Perhaps not."
Laura fretted at this by-play. It was not to give Harry
Burnville and Glory Adair a chance to argue that the
detective had been summoned from Detroit. Her dom-
inating idea was to hasten the enquiry to a solution.
Burnville turned to her.
“If there were murder, which I doubt, the means em-
ployed must be subtle—unnoticeable. And taking effect
rapidly. That means poison in some form. After re-
ceiving the telegram, your father telephoned the chauffeur.
Within ten minutes he telephoned Doctor Chalmers,
stating that he was dying. Whatever occurred to cause
his death occurred after the first telephone message and
before the second."
Laura shuddered.
“In other words, occurred after the message had been
delivered and probably after the man who delivered it had
left. That's why I attach no importance to the telegram.
Whatever happened, happened very quickly, in less than
ten minutes."
"That stands to reason," commented Tom Winright.
“The hand-print is not Mr. Winright's ?”
"No," answered Laura, doggedly. "I—I know.”
Once more, in fancy, she knelt beside the white-draped
bier and, dry-eyed, held her father's cold fingers in hers,
painfully turning the dead hand toward the light.
"It might help to determine when the print came
there?” suggested Glory. “When the envelope was first
opened, or after it was opened by Mr. Winright? If
the latter, then the substance from which the print was
made must have been inside this room.”


60 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Thank you." The detective eyed her with cool
challenge.
“I would supplement, from my own observations of
the hand-print," went on Miss Adair, “that this is not a
man whose hands are normally dirty. The lines, where
they show, are many and complicated, indicating refine-
ment; the print, too, is dragged. The hand was wiped,
you see; it didn't just clutch the paper. This man's first
impulse is to wipe his hand; he snatches up the telegram
Mr. Winright has just dropped, it being the first thing
to come handy."
Burnville did not try to hide his impatience. He re-
fused to attach importance to that hand-print. Now he
merely nodded to what Glory Adair said.
“Quite right,” he commented. "By the way, Tom"-
he turned to young Winright—"had your father any other
relatives? Or your mother?”.
"Mother-no. And father had an only brother.
Harold Winright. I don't know much about him,"
pursued Tom. “Dad never told me much. He seemed
afraid of him-afraid—”.
Laura, shifting in her chair, stared at Tom.
"Harold Winright was dead," she interposed, but with-
out conviction.
“Dad told me that,” agreed Tom. “Anyway, Harold
never seemed more than a tradition. He died, it seemed,
before we were born. Yet there was always that in-
definable hint of some shadow in connection with him
some threat-menace you understand, Burnville ? I
can't describe it, it's so absolutely indefinite."
"I understand. Now, what do you know of Harold
Winright and his connections?"
“Nothing."
Laura nodded in agreement.
Burnville glanced up from his note-book. Glory Adair


THE SOURCE OF THE SMEAR 61
had risen, and was moving softly up and down the room.
She paused a moment before the fire-place.
The detective studied the hand-print. His eyes peered
beyond it into the dim past from which loomed Harold
Winright's shadowy, menacing figure.
"Mr. Burnville!"
The voice came from the far corner, where Glory Adair
now knelt before the black box. The detective, rising,
crossed to her side.
"See."
He saw her pointing finger, oddly slim and fine. Then
his glance leapt admiringly to her challenging brown
eyes.
"Nothat,” she insisted. “That's where the hand-
print came from. That man was here with your father,
Laura Winright.”
Laura, shuddering, glanced about the room, as though
behind the window curtains or in some dark recess of
the book-shelves the mysterious man in grey might be
hidden, waiting to pounce upon them. But Burnville's
eyes followed the nurse's resolute index finger.
“There!"
From the corner of the black box oozed and fell to the
floor an infinitesimal drop of brown oil.


CHAPTER VI
THE RECORD THAT VANISHED
Mr. Burnville regarded the black box.
"A house telephone system?"
"I suppose so," observed Tom Winright. “To be per-
fectly frank, Harry, this room has always been a mystery
to me."
"I shall test the instrument.” Seating himself, Burn-
ville caught up the receiver. “Hello-hello! No Centra
to answer, eh? Is this new since you went to England
Miss Winright?"
Laura assented. Burnville, after two ineffectual at
tempts to elicit a response, rose and crossed to the Frenc!
windows.
"A line of wires connects with the garage. Is tha
also new ?” Another nod from Laura. "Two story bric
garage; chauffeur's living rooms up-stairs. This tel
phone is to call him; but evidently he's not there."
"Undoubtedly!” Tom's tone suggested wrath deep
nursed.
“Does this system connect with the basement?”
"No. Why?"
“While we're waiting for the chauffeur, I'll intervis
the other servants.”
Glory Adair pressed the push-button. She beamed
Mr. Burnville. His briskness appealed to her.
Katie Sparrow answered the summons. For ten liv
minutes the detective quizzed her. She told of witness
the will.
62


64
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Describe him, please.”
Judith MacTurk did so. Rather a tallish old man, with
untrimmed grey beard, and wearing a shabby grey suit
and a soft grey felt hat pulled down over his eyes. Grey,
all grey, she insisted : and always shabby.
“Now, the manifestations of this ghost-?"
“Sir?”
"How often did you see him?"
For five minutes Mrs. MacTurk floundered in a bog
of verbose narration. Burnville interposed.
"Quite often?”
"Very often, which, sir, I may tell ye"
“Since when?”
"Since-oh, nigh a year. But there was a ghost years
and years before that-oh, these many years. Which
Judith MacTurk has heard him many's the night dragging
his murdered corpse across this same floor while poor
Mr. Winright sat here before the fire. Always it was
dragging, dragging, dragging—".
Burnville snapped his finger.
"Stop! Miss Winright”-he turned to Laura-"you
had better go outside. You can't stand this."
"I'll be all right,” faltered the girl; and gripped Glory's
hand, intent above all on staying.
Burnville did not argue. He went on questioning
Judith MacTurk. Judith MacTurk had seen the grey
ghost on foggy mornings or in the evening lurking about
the lawn or slinking among the cedars.
“But never in the day time?”
Judith agreed.
“Did he ever enter the house?”
"Sir, he must have, if he stole Mr. Winright's will—"
“Did you see him in the house?”
"No, sir. But,” pursued the old woman, hopefully,
"he could come into this room through these windows"


THE RECORD THAT VANISHED 65
-she indicated the French windows opening on the porch
-"wi'out gaeing through the hoose, an' often the door
was closed an' Judith MacTurk couldna see through oak
like them funny rays”
“In short, Judith MacTurk's eyes were not of X-ray
capacity? When you came home that night, Miss Win-
right"he turned to Laura—“were these windows
open?”
"No."
The detective swung on Judith MacTurk.
“Did you see the grey-bearded man—the ghost—the
day Mr. Winright died ?”.
Judith MacTurk stared.
"Judith MacTurk thought she kennt him amang the
cedar trees”-she motioned, through the windows, toward
the cliff edge.
"At what hour?”.
Laura leaned forward, intent. Judith MacTurk's
ghosts might, after all, be more than an old woman's
fancy.
Judith MacTurk in answer to the detective drew from
the bosom of her apron a greasy, dirty, black covered
book with a pencil attached by a string. She slowly
turned the pages, searching with peering gaze the crabbed
writing, evidently her own. Burnville waited, patiently
and long.
“What book is that?” he demanded at last.
“It's the book of the ghosts, sir," responded Judith
MacTurk, earnestly. "Ah! Ah! Here 'tis, sir. May
25—9.20 a. m. See! See!" She was all excitement.
“It's wrote down, there's no denying what's wrote by a
witness. 'G. B. ghost, 9.20 a. m. along by cedars. J. T.
went out toward him and he slippit up into the clouds.'”
"In other words, turned and ran?” The detective was
skeptical. Yet he examined the book carefully. There


66 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
were two other books before that, Judith MacTurk
gravely assured him. They were evidence, she asserted;
evidence to prove that fou' nursie bodies an' other folk
who ridiculed such things as ghosts knew not whereof
they spoke.
“Now, Mrs. MacTurk,” pursued the detective, “do you
know any man in the neighbourhood answering that par-
ticular description ?”
“There was auld Peter Dawson wha keppit doon by
the tanyard, wha died three years gane"
“Any living man?”
Judith MacTurk scorned him. “Livin' men be not
ghosts. Nae, nae, Judith MacTurk kens nane.” She
knew no grey-bearded man in all Maitland Port that could
be the same, if it were a man; and she was positive it
was a spectre.
Burnville's further catechism elicited little. Mrs. Mac-
Turk had never met Adam Winright till he bought Castle
Sunset. She, and her husband, now dead, were Maitland
Port folks. Adam Winright left the two children to her
care and upbringing, temporarily according to their first
arrangement but permanently as the result proved.
Through their childhood he lived in Detroit, visiting the
children but rarely; nor did they often go to Detroit.
Two years before his death, Winright had given over
the management of the business to George Annisford,
and had made his home at Castle Sunset. But, almost
simultaneously, Tom commenced to work at Detroit and
Laura shortly afterward went abroad.
“You never heard the ghost except when Mr. Win-
right was in the Ghost Room?"
"Sir!" assented Judith MacTurk.
“And never saw him till after Mr. Winright came to
live here?"
"Not the grey-bearded ghost, sir.”


THE RECORD THAT VANISHED 67
Burnville turned to the frightened maid with a reassur-
ing smile.
"And did you see this man, Katie?"
“Yes, sir.”
To Katie he was palpably a man, despite Mrs. Mac-
Turk's controversial ghost book; a grey-bearded man
who appeared only on foggy mornings or at eventide, and
hovered in hazy distance, shrinking out of sight if any
person approached. Katie's description fitted word for
word with Judith MacTurk's. She had never spoken to
this man, had never met him face to face; nor could she
identify him with anyone.
"Though," she added, "there are plenty of sailors that
come and go in the harbour, at the foot of the hill.”
"A sailor," commented Burnville, "would hardly be so
often in this one port."
He briskly dismissed both Katie and Mrs. MacTurk,
and turned to the box in the corner; then, on after-
thought, rose and with some difficulty shot open the rusty
bolt that fastened the French windows. “These windows
haven't been opened lately,” he commented; but never-
theless examined the threshold closely. “Ladies and
gentlemen,” he added, “this man in grey seems to possess
possibilities. Now, we shall surprise the chauffeur.
Have you keys, Tom?"
Tom produced them.
The brick garage faced the side street; the double doors
opening on the drive stood ajar as Tom had left them
when he took out the car. In the cement-floored, bare-
walled room was merely the usual equipment. At the
rear a flight of wooden steps led to an upstairs door.
Burnville, ascending, found this door locked.
He knocked.
There was no answer.
Burnville tried the key Tom proffered. The lock


68 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
yielded. The detective halted, his fingers on the door-
knob.
"I have your authority?”
“Certainly,” interposed Laura Winright.
Immediately after, ascending, she found herself beset
by compunctions. The room was cosy. One end was
curtained off; the part in which they stood, looking on
one hand toward Castle Sunset, on the other toward Lake
Huron, evidently served as a work-shop. Along one wall,
just beneath the row of little windows, ran a long work-
table, with machinery and tools in place. Art reproduc-
tions on the wall gave her a new conception of Nick
Ross. Geraniums blossomed at one of the east windows.
A pleasant, soft rug covered most of the roughly-boarded
floor. The oil stove, though not in use, gave a hint of
comfort. Laura drew back.
"Mr. Burnville !” she began.
But Burnville was stooping over a black box wired
to the wall at one end of the work-table.
. A heavy step sounded on the stair. Up came Nick
Ross, jauntily, and surveyed the surprised group with a
whimsical smile.
"Now, just get right out of here,” he said, bluntly.
“Depart! Vamoose! Spread your wings and flutter. A
man's house is his castle, even if it's not quite a Castle
Sunset. The afternoon's fine, friends. Go out and bathe
in it."
Laura Winright stiffened with hostility toward this
impudent young man with the peremptory tone and the
cynical smile. She stood her ground, and looked into
his grey eyes. Then he laughed, and doffed his hat.
"Miss Winright!” He brought forward the lone chair.
“Accept my hospitality, such as it is, Miss Adair." He
up-ended a packing box for the nurse. “Gentlemen, be
seated. The floor is commodious and the work-table is


THE RECORD THAT VANISHED 69
long. Yes, and the choice is free.” He perched himself
on the work-table. “Laura Winright, I'm delighted to
see you."
"Impudent!” reflected Laura Winright; yet she found
herself liking his sheer impudence. She felt the need of
teaching him his place, and shrank from so doing, lest he
suddenly become as other servants, purely servile.
Tom introduced Burnville.
"I am here in connection with the late Mr. Winright's
will,” explained the detective, crisply. “I have young
Mr. Winright's full authority to question everybody."
"Got a note-book on you ?” asked the imperturbable
chauffeur. “Then get it out. I'm ready."
Burnville whipped out his note-book. He stood a mo-
ment, looking the chauffeur up and down. Nick Ross,
seated and comparatively at ease, had his questioner at
a disadvantage. Nick Ross saw it, and laughed.
“You want to watch me. Here, we'll change places,".
he volunteered; and leapt to the floor, where he stood
throughout the questioning.
"Name?”
“Nick Ross.”
“Nicholas ?"
“Nicol.”
“Oh! Chauffeur?" A nod. “How long employed
here?"
“Two years this coming October."
“And before then ?”
"I worked in Detroit. I was working there when Mr.
Winright asked me to take this place."
"Parents?"
“Dead.” Nick Ross glanced at Laura Winright.
"This is quite a catechism, isn't it?".
Laura stood amazed at his effrontery. Yet she sensed,
even now, that it was not put on, but a natural, trustful


70
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
friendliness; a friendliness that thought it nothing out of
place to address a superior after the manner of a bosom
friend. Laura studied the chauffeur furtively. His eyes,
she remembered, were grey. His tan suggested outdoor
life. As he talked, he thrust his hands into his pockets.
His tone was almost a drawl; it seemed slow and lazy
in contrast with Burnville's staccato questioning.
"I'm a damned Yankee,” he said, serenely. “Brought
up in Connecticut; Uncle Jake Ross, a lawyer, had a little
legacy in trust for me. I got through the public schools,
and then vamoosed. Uncle Jake thought I'd make a
smart lawyer, but I hadn't the patience: I'd rather put a
car together than take an estate apart, and motor gas
suited me better than the sort the down-east politicians
run on. So Uncle Jake Ross gave me a few hundred
dollars and sent me along to Detroit. 'If you can't get
a job there, go to blazes,' he said. But I didn't need to
do that, for I got a job as chauffeur with a Detroiter
named Gates. One day Mr. Winright rode home with
Gates from a directors' meeting. I noticed he kept look-
ing pretty hard at me. When we let him down at Win-
right's, he said: “Young man, if you ever want a job,
here's the place to find me.' That was the first I ever saw
him. A little later I got tinkering on my far-famed
recording telephone.”
Burnville glanced at the instrument, but said nothing.
"Mr. Gates didn't like the Far-Famed; thought it cut
in on my work. I guess it did. I needed money, anyway,
to buy stuff for my experiments. I went to Mr. Win-
right. He listened without a word for about half an hour.
Then he said, 'Come to work on Monday at $150 a
month.' I was with him a month in Detroit. Then he
sent me up here.”
“As chauffeur?”
"When he needed one. Mr. Winright rarely used the


THE RECORD THAT VANISHED 71
car. I got into a way of regarding my time as my
own.”
Tom Winright glowered.
"This recording telephone?” pursued Burnville. "What
is it?”
"It's the invention that's going to make my fortune,"
said Nick Ross, serenely. “It's going to revolutionize
the moving picture industry. Instead of shipping films
all over the country and putting them on to the accompani-
ment of any old tune, every local theatre will be wired
to a big city producing plant. Click! Your show starts.
The people move on the screen. They talk. They laugh.
They howl. They cuss, if the censors will let 'em. What
does it? Simplest thing in the world, Mr. Burnville.
Electricity, carried over a wire."
"You have invented this?" questioned Burnville,
sceptically.
“I've planned to invent it," gravely returned Nick Ross.
“Planning is half the battle, you know.”
Then he laughed, musically.
"What I have invented,” he conceded, "is a telephone
that will record a message at either end. That's a first
step."
“Does it record the message perfectly?”
"I wouldn't say that.”
Laura Winright smiled. This young man's impudence
was delightfully colossal. She relished it. She liked him
in this mood of cheerful cynicism. He jested so seri-
ously; he laughed so at the serious side of his jest, the
endless, harassing failure of his life.
"That's it.” He indicated the black box. “That's the
wonder of wonders; the Ross phonetescope, rising to re-
port progress."
"That box contains a record ?"


72
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"No. It's empty as the pockets of Uncle Jake's client
at the end of a lawsuit.”
Again the soft, musical laugh. Nick Ross, glancing
about as though in search of admiration, shot a quick,
daring look at Laura's face. She turned away. Her
eyes sought the red geraniums on the window sill. Be-
tween them stood a little easel, holding a photograph.
For one uncomprehending moment she was oddly im-
pressed with its familiarity. Involuntarily stooping, she
studied it closely.
Then, with a deeper flush than before, she glanced
furtively toward the chauffeur. Her eyes met Glory's..
"It's a very good photograph of you, Laura Winright,"
said the nurse.
Laura stared at the floor. Perplexed, resentful, she
heard Burnville's continued questioning.
“This box connects with the one in Castle Sunset?”
"Yes. Mr. Winright used it to call me; and it helped
my experiments.”
"Is there a record in the other box-the one in the
library?”
Nick Ross started. His habitual good-humour seemed
for an instant shaken.
"Seek, and ye shall find," he at last observed. “Shall
we?”
Burnville's brows lifted. Laura felt her heart beat
faster. What message might her father not have left in
those tragic ten minutes when he knew he was dying;
the message he had wished to give her?
"We'll take a look," assented Burnville. “But first-
show me how this thing works.”
Ross, pressing a little lever, snapped open the black
box. “The record goes on there," he explained. “You
have to be careful taking it on and off, else it will
scratch. While you talk, this needle beneath the mouth-


74 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
He dropped to his knees, and with his fingers raked
the flaky ashes. Then he laughed.
“Here endeth !” He held up a tiny bit of wax.
"Smashed to smithereens-melted to molasses. That's
what happened to our record. But I've got more in my
work-shop"
He turned to go.
“Sit down," commanded Burnville.


CHAPTER VII
THE LETTERS IN WINRIGHT'S DESK
Nick Ross did not obey. He stood beside his machine,
looking Burnville up and down.
"Well, you are a cool one, giving peremptory orders
to a free American. What do you want, anyway?”.
Laura involuntarily contrasted the two men. The sun-
tanned, smiling chauffeur was about of a size with Burn-
ville, about of an age, though Burnville's moustache and
Burnville's glasses and Burnville's shrewd professional
look made him seem much the older.
"Sit down," said Burnville, again. "I'm here with
full authority to question the servants."
"Cut out your servant talk, friend. I'm no servant.
I'm a chauffeur, and I'd have you know that a chauffeur
is lord and master."
"I would suggest," said Burnville, drily, “that you sit
down and answer my questions."
Laura found herself inwardly resenting his tone; in-
voluntarily siding with puzzled, perplexed Nick Ross.
For the first time she appreciated that the young man
knew nothing of their suspicions.
“Mr. Ross," she interposed. “To oblige me.”
Ross laughed.
"It's a bargain, Miss Winright.” He sat down, gazing
across the corner of the table at Burnville. “Now, go
to it."
Burnyille had stayed bland throughout. Ross, evi-
dently, had surprised him, but had not annoyed him. His
75


THE LETTERS IN WINRIGHT'S DESK 77
Ross seemed embarrassed, for once in his impudent
young life.
"Well ?” Burnville's tone was peremptory.
“Oh, I just asked if he'd heard from Laura lately.”
Laura Winright flushed.
"Miss Winright, you mean?”
“I said, Laura.” Having admitted the truth, Ross did
not seek to further temporize. “He said he hadn't heard
from her. That was all. Nothing very devilish about
that, was there?”
Laura dodged the friendly smile he flung at her.
"And after that?”.
"Nothing more to do with Mr. Winright till close to
eight o'clock. Just a few minutes before eight, Mr.
Burnville, I heard my recording telephone buzz. Mr.
Winright told me”
“One minute, please. Give me his exact words."
Ross shot a quick glance at the detective.
"He said, 'Is that you, Nick?' I told him, yes. Then
he said, 'I have just received a telegram that Laura is
coming home. She may be on the 8.05. Take the car
to the station and meet her.' I said, 'Yes.'”
"Yes, sir?”
"No, Mr. Burnville. I did not say, 'sir.'"
Laura's delight in the chauffeur's impudence was
shadowed by a hint of resentment.
"Then you took the car out and met the 8.05 train?"
"I was a few minutes late."
"Did you see Mr. Winright himself?”
"No."
Burnville tapped his pencil on the note-book. Laura
sensed his wish to trap the chauffeur into some admis-
sion; that he felt the frank, impudent young man was
perhaps holding something back.
Had Ross sensed the true significance of all this ques-


78 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
tioning, she wondered. Hardly. He knew nothi
their suspicions. To Laura's mind flashed the the
"He may know more than he tells. He may be gi
She shot a glance into his frank grey eyes; an
suspicion vanished.
He was not that sort of man.
In the same instant the chauffeur leaned forward
"I left the garage at eight. The little clock up
was just striking. I glanced toward Castle Sunset.
library windows were dark. Outdoors it was just bei
light and darkness. As I turned the car into the s
I saw a young man come down the steps from the
door, and down the walk to the street."
Burnville's brows lifted sceptically.
"Can you describe this man?" Glory Adair brok
ensuing silence.
"No, Miss Adair. It was near dark. He w
quickly. I was in a hurry. I don't know which wa
went."
"Yet you say he was young ?”
"I judge by the way he walked.”
Still Burnville tapped with his pencil. Laura fai
she read his thoughts. She put the idea from her
credulously. This Nick Ross might be impudent, b
he was not that sort of man. Quite instinctively
soul rallied to his defence, even against suspicion.
there was that long morning he had spent alone in
work-room—that long afternoon explained by a s
that could never be corroborated of a walk up the M
land—and those two hours just before her father <
once more alone there—and there was now this sudd
conjured story, uncorroborated by anyone else, of a yo
man leaving Castle Sunset at the stroke of eight.
Only, Nick Ross was not that sort of man.


THE LETTERS IN WINRIGHT'S DESK 79
Burnville watched him in a deliberate silence that at
last grew awkward.
“Did you see any other suspicious person?”
Ross meditated.
“N-no.” He hesitated. “Yes, now I think of it, there
was one man who might be called suspicious. I've seen
him slinking along the hedge and through the grounds,
always in foggy mornings or after dusk. He seemed an
old man and dressed in grey, with a grey felt hat pulled
down over his eyes. He looked rather-well, rather
taggy.”
"And had a black beard?”
"I think it was grey."
"Did you recognize him?"
"No. I hailed him once, and he scattered like a flock
of sheep."
Burnville pushed back his note-book. He eyed the
chauffeur, coldly; and Laura Winright felt her heart
sink.
Then with a smile the detective put out his hand.
"I'm sorry to have kept you so long from the phonete-
scope."
Ross laughed.
"This afternoon isn't a patch on the age it will take
to finish.”
Burnville, rising, closed the French windows, shutting
out the young man's cheery whistle as he crossed toward
the garage.
"I intend to make a formal search for the will,” he
observed. "It is not with Airth & Kinzie at Detroit;
and Greenwood, the only local lawyer who ever did
business for Mr. Winright, knows nothing of any will.
I find a trust deed at Detroit providing annuities for
the two servants. Of course, as witnesses, they could not


80
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
receive any gift under the will. As there's no trac
a will at Detroit, it must be here."
He indicated particularly the old-fashioned walnut
in the centre of the room, a massive chunk of glc
furniture. The corner drawers might hide mis
papers. Burnville, however, did not immediately at
them. Rising, he glanced about the room. Three y
were lined with book-shelves reaching to the ceiling,
drawers for bases. With an air of attending first to i
essentials, the detective went through these draw
They revealed a few old newspapers, neatly folded,
a few broken-backed or coverless books, carefully
ranged and tied.
“Mr. Winright was very systematic,” commented G
Adair. “His hand told me that."
Burnville glanced at her.
“So you're a palmist?"
“Palmistry helps, sir.”
Burnville rose, and dusted himself with a handkerch
"I'll look on top of the books,” he said; and clim
on a chair to do so.
"You'll find nothing," the nurse advised him. "I
Winright would not dispose of an important docum
so carelessly. See how neatly those old papers w
folded and those worn-out books arranged !”
"Palmistry again!" scoffed Burnville. "You're rig
though.” Having made the circuit of the shelves, he
last descended. “Will you unlock the drawers, Tom?"
The first drawer was empty. The next yielded a bun
of letters, carefully tied.
"Your letters, Miss Winright,” said Burnville.
"Not worth reading."
"I surmise," put in Glory Adair, “that you find the
letters arranged in the precise order in which they we
received ?”


82
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Together they read the letter more closely. It was
written with pencil, on a cheap quality of scribbling
paper, in an almost illegible hand.
October 18.
You never expected I'd make trouble again but I dont
think you done right by me the last divy. So, it's up to
you to come acrost. I'm up agin it and desprate. There's
got to be a fair divy, I tell you. I maybe cant afford to
be seen, but you cant afford to shut the door agin me if
I call. Look for me Tuesday night.
A. W.
“Oh!” gasped Laura, a new picture shaping for her
of that last night in the Ghost Room.
"These letters" —Burnville glanced complacently at
Glory Adair—“are not arranged in chronological order.
The next I find is May 20. But here is one of
December 1."
He read:
Its time for another instalment, old pal. I rely on a
harty welcome. Tuesday night is my night, and be in the
same place.
And dont try to thretten. Maybe I cant afford to
have people know where I am, but neither can you afford
to have people know what you are.
Dont try to put me off with a handful when I want
a bucketful. Ive been patient as it is. If you want to
get rid of me, do what's right. Thats a quicker way than
threttening
Webb.
“Who is Webb?" asked the detective. “Does the name
suggest anything?” But both brother and sister looked


I
THE LETTERS IN WINRIGHT'S DESK 83
blank. Glory Adair watched satirically. If the detective
was amused at her apparent discomfiture, she, for her
part, found amusement in the detective.
"On February 8,” pursued Burnville, “there is another
letter.”
I cant say you didnt treat me pretty handsome these last
few calls; but Im down and out. After all, what have
you got that aint mine just as much as its yours? Answer
me that, old pal.
Divvy up, fifty-fifty, is the only fair word for it.
Make up your mind to that. Youll never get rid of me
till you split fair and square.
Tuesday night-and remember.
Handy Andy.
Again the detective glanced at Tom and Laura; and
again the name struck no responsive chord in their
memories. Laura was trying to reach back, mentally; to
lay tight hold on it; to find somewhere in the dim dis-
tance of her early Maitland Port days a grim, menacing
figure, a Handy Andy Webb. Yet she could not.
"Did you ever hear of such a man, Tom?" she
whispered.
“Never, in God's world,” gasped Tom. He wiped the
perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief.
“This is all new to me. What's next, Harry?”
The next was a brief slip of paper, with the significant
words:
Tuesday night-as usual.
"No date even for that one," commented Burnville.
Glory Adair sidled up to him.
“Mr. Burnville," she urged, insinuatingly, "I've just


84 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
thought of something. Mr. Winright had a very
methodical nature. His hand tells me that. Doesn't it
surprise you that he neglected to arrange these letters in
their proper order?”
“Not at all,” flashed Burnville. “When panic comes
in at the door, human nature jumps out the window.”
Laura clutched the nurse's arm.
The last letter was unsigned.
May 20.
Im coming again, Tuesday.
And see here, Adam Winright, this time theres got
to be a settlement, full and complete. The wife's sick
and Im poor, not because I oughtnt to be rich, but
because of you. I wont stand no more monkey work.
If you dont settle with me Ill settle with you or my
names not Andrew Webster.
"Webb," commented Tom. "Handy Andy. Andrew
Webster.” He knitted his brows.
“Tuesday," said the detective, "was the 25th of May.
That Tuesday morning was the last time this grey-
bearded man was seen near Castle Sunset. That man is
Andrew Webster. And Andrew Webster is the man I
want."
"You'll get a warrant for him?" flashed Tom.
“Yes.”
Laura protested.
“But the newspapers!” Her whole soul shrank from
blatant publicity.
"I'll see to that,” Burnville assured her. "The warrant
will merely charge attempted blackmail. That's plenty to
hold him "
"If you find him," challenged Glory Adair.
The rivals faced one another.


CHAPTER VIII
THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD
Burnville, without delay, secured a warrant for the
arrest of Andrew Webster on a charge of attempted
blackmail.
"This, and the description I have, will be good enough
to hold him. Once we get our man, we can find out the
truth,” he told Laura Winright.
She was conscious that throughout he had addressed
himself to her, rather than to Tom. She sensed Tom's
scepticism; she tragically felt that, even after the finding
of the menacing letters, neither man really believed that
there had been actual murder. They still held to Doctor
Chalmers' diagnosis of heart failure.
“Our grey-bearded man will be travelling under some
other name, that's certain,” declared the detective. “But
I'll get him. Meanwhile, keep one eye on that library.”
“I'll keep the keys, too,” announced Laura.
Their scepticism hurt. She was thoroughly self-con-
vinced that there had been murder. That thought, too,
had hurt in its time; but it had left her sternly intent on
running the murderer to earth.
Burnville made enquiries at the two railroad stations.
No man of the description given had been seen leaving
town on or since the 25th of May.
"That's one advantage of a small place," commented
Burnville to Miss Winright. “If anybody goes away,
there's some one else not too busy to take notice and re-
member. Our man might have got by unnoticed, but
86


THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD 87
it's hardly likely. I've questioned bus drivers and hotel
porters and everyone likely to see him.”
Enquiry at the harbour speedily showed that the man,
unless he was a sailor, had not left by one of the few
freighters moving this early.
"He's in town yet,” decided Burnville. “We may have
him in a few days."
Then he went ahead with a thorough drag-netting
of the town itself. Conducted quietly, unostentatiously,
and practically single-handed, his enquiries took time.
Sceptical Tom Winright at last tired of waiting.
"I'm going back to Detroit,” he announced. “Annis-
ford wants to get away and try out his new yacht. If
anything turns up, wire me; and if you need money,
remember there's two million back of you. Get up an
affidavit regarding your search for the will, and send it
to me. I'll have Airth & Kinzie get letters of administra-
tion for the estate. Dad must have burned that will after
he made it.”
Laura accompanied him to the train. He kissed her
patronizingly.
"Sister mine,” he said, very seriously, "Annisford is
going to bring that new yacht here; and he's not coming
here just to try out the yacht. He hasn't built it just be
cause he likes to own the biggest yacht on the Lakes.”
Standing like a statue, she watched the train go out.
Mechanically she accepted the chauffeur's hand to help her
into the car.
She knew what Tom meant.
Two years before, she had promised to marry George
Annisford when she came back to America. His diamond
on her finger was a perpetual, haunting reminder. Annis-
ford had half-jestingly, half-seriously, suggested a honey-
moon on the Lakes in the finest yacht that money could
build.


88 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Laura shivered. Two years ago, such a prospect had
seemed far distant, and not unwelcome. Now, it was
terribly near. She could not marry so soon. Of course
it was impossible, with her father just dead ... Prosaic
Annisford, though, was not the man to take thought of
such things. He would merely remember her girlish
promise.
She must put him off. He must wait, till this search
was finished. And then-
She still shivered.
Nick Ross half turned from the wheel.
"Are you cold, Miss Winright?”
He had noticed that shiver, in the mirror.
“Cold-on a warm day like this !” She tried to laugh.
She sensed a change in his attitude toward her. Usually
he had been boyishly impudent. Now he was solicitous.
At Castle Sunset, she told Glory Adair what Tom had
said.
"Mr. Annisford is coming, maybe in a week—two
weeks in his yacht-"
Then, bit by bit, she told Glory all, and showed her the
glittering ring..
“Do you love him?" asked Glory.
Then she abruptly changed the topic.
“Our detective is very thorough, and singularly per-
sistent. He called just now. He's got track of his man
on a grain boat coming down from the Soo.” She smiled,
admiringly. “Put Harry Burnville on a definite trail, and
he'll never give up. The way he's combing this little old
town is a caution. He fairly haunts the harbour."
From day to day, Burnville brought word of much
work, persistent searching, but small achievement.
"You'll never find that man,” protested Laura Win-
right, almost fretfully. The search was wearing on her.
“I've found him twice," returned Burnville. “In fact,


THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD 89
there's a report afloat that this particular man is entitled
to a big legacy from Adam Winright, and that I'm the
lawyer looking for him. I'm advertising, too." He
showed a Montreal paper. “That story by now has
travelled from the Soo to the St. Lawrence. Here's a
despatch from a Detroit paper.” He drew a clipping
from his note-book. "If that man, Andrew Webster,
is after money, he'll fall for this story. There's been
no hue and cry of murder, no inquest, no hint of sus-
picion, nothing to put him on his guard. He'll walk right
into the trap. It's a lot easier to find a missing legatee
than a fugitive murderer. You can catch more flies with
honey than with vinegar, you know.”
Chuckling, he tucked away the clipping.
"I'll get him,” he repeated, confidently.
"You said you'd found him twice?" questioned Laura.
"You mean you got trace of him?"
“No. But I had two claimants for the legacy, both
confident that they were Andrew Webster and could prove
it. Half a dozen questions showed me they were absolute
frauds.”
Burnville's confidence was sheer habit; his speedy rally-
ing from defeat was a part of his training. To Laura
Winright, unused to such a quest, these ups and downs
were harassing. The pursuit of Andrew Webster was
for her not a mere item of the day's work, but a ven-
detta as sacred as any that ever existed in Sicily.
Each day's failure, as day swiftly followed day, meant
a further opportunity of escape for her father's mur-
derer.
The thought harassed her relentlessly.
With Glory Adair, she studied the smeary hand-print
on the telegram till the cruel, deep line leading to the index
finger was photographed on her soul. When she found
a man with a deep-cut line on his hand leading to the


90
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
index finger, she would have the man she sought. And as
Burnville went on with his fruitless search of the town
and his vain enquiries among lake sailors who came and
went, that thought drove itself into her mind: “I am
the one to find him. I am the only one who can find
him. In his very heart, Harry Burnville doesn't believe
there's such a man. Tom doesn't believe it. But I know
it. I am the one to find that man.”
Yet she was weak and helpless. Burnville, to whom
her feud meant nothing, could reach out across land and
water in his quest for Andrew Webster. She was a
woman. She could do nothing save sit still and fret.
"Glory!" she cried, impatiently, “there must be some
way I can help. Won't you help me find it?"
“Lie down and have a sleep, dear," advised Glory,
practically. “Then we'll talk it over.”
When Laura woke it was late afternoon. A letter
awaited her. She was about to open it when the telephone
rang. The call was from Burnville, tersely decisive as
all Burnville's messages were.
"I've got him, Miss Winright. He's at the Ocean
House. Come right down in the car. Bring someone
who can identify him. Oh, say, that chauffeur has seen
him—he's the man to bring. If he isn't handy, bring
Mrs. MacTurk.”
Laura found Nick Ross at the garage. He dropped
his work on the phonetescope with cheerful alacrity. In
a moment more the car swept around the curve toward
Harbour Hill.
Then Laura remembered her letter. It bore a Port
Huron post-mark of the day before. The writing was
Annisford's. She knew before she read the matter-of-
fact message just what she would find there. The
Beatrice was just leaving Port Huron. That meant that
the Beatrice might reach Maitland Port at any moment.


THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD 91
The car descended the hill road. Laura glanced across
the lake, past the fringe of dark elevators and straggly
buildings that lined the wharves. There was no spot on
the blue.
She sighed relief.
Anyway, the quest was ended. So far as that was con-
cerned, she could marry Annisford now. Only—she
crumpled the letter! He treated her love quite as a matter
of fact—and her woman's heart craved something more.
They found Burnville in the sitting room of a weather-
beaten frame hotel at the foot of the hill. Across a little
table from him sat a squat man with an untrimmed grey
beard. He was dressed in a sailor suit; his eyes, furtively
keen, looked down as Laura Winright came in.
Burnville glanced at her. His glance was no longer
confident, but perplexed and uncertain. In a dry, hard
tone he introduced Miss Winright.
Then he sat down again. The grey-bearded man had
not even risen at her coming.
"You say your real name is Andrew Webster ?" ques-
tioned Burnville, a bit sharply.
The man gave him a dubious glance.
“See here, there ain't no catch to this thing, is there?"
"No. If you can prove you're the man, there's some-
thing coming to you. Winright and Webster were pretty
thick years ago. It seems Mr. Winright owed him some-
thing. This legacy is intended to square the debt.”
The man leaned close to Burnville.
"See here," he whispered, hoarsely, "I got into a little
scrap at Buffalo. Nothing bad, you know, but the dicks
might have faked up something on me. So I lit out-
shipped on the Superior King for her first trip up, and
I've been with her ever since. I signed as John Langton,
but my real name's Andrew Webster. Nothing wicked
in that, is there?" he concluded, defiantly.


THE RETURN OF ANNISFORD 93
Laura Winright rose, stiffly. Burnville leaned across
the table.
"You're a fraud !” he said, tersely. “Get out!”
Laura Winright rode home in stricken silence. Once
she turned in her seat as the car ascended the hill road,
and glanced across the lake, fancying in the distance a
white, gleaming hull and taper spars; breathing easier
that her more careful search did not find them.
"Wait here with the car," she told Nick Ross; and went
into the conservatory. There Glory Adair presently found
her clipping a bouquet of white flowers.
"Well?” asked Glory.
“Just another fraud!” The girl's scissors went
viciously snip! snip!
She went out to the car with her flowers.
“Drive to Maitland Cemetery," she commanded, in a
hard voice.
The chauffeur glanced at her, manifestly alarmed by
her tense, possessed mood.
The cemetery was a mile or more beyond town, and
looked down upon the river. There came to them, dis-
tantly, the sound of the Maitland's thin stream splashing
over rocks and stones, making music in a host of tiny
waterfalls. To Laura, the sound was a dirge.
At the white gates, Ross helped her down.
"Wait here, Ross!” she commanded; and hurried along
the winding paths and across the rustic bridge. In the
distance a granite shaft and a mound of freshly turned
earth marked the grave of Adam Winright.
Laura laid down the white flowers, and knelt a long
time in silence. The only sounds that came to her were
the swish of branches in the soft June breeze, and the
distant dirge of the river.
The moments raced on, and still she knelt. She was
telling herself things that she must never forget. What-


94 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
ever befell her, she wanted these things printed on her
memory in letters of fire. She had loved her father.
She rose sharply, with hands uplifted to the blue sky.
“This task comes first,” she breathed. “It is mine
not Harry Burnville's, not Glory Adair's, but mine."
Her eyes shone, as though mirroring the sunshine; hers
was the rapt look of the visionary.
Behind her a twig snapped. She glanced about, sur-
prised, and found herself facing Nick Ross.
“Oh!"
"You were gone so long, Miss Winright,” he explained.
"I was afraid.”
She looked again at the grave, and the white flowers,
and the blue sky overhead.
“It is all right," she whispered.
They walked back to the car. Neither spoke. The
chauffeur helped her to her seat. His hand seemed to
linger on hers.
"He was my very best friend,” he whispered.
Driving home, she sat silent; but still her face was
radiant. All things were settled in her mind now, de-
termined irrevocably. Nothing must intervene to halt
her in her search. If Burnville failed, she would still
keep on. If she herself failed, she would still keep on.
And George Annisford must stand aside.
Laura leaned forward.
“Will you drive past Harbour Park, Ross?”
As she expected, from Harbour Park she saw the taper
spars of Annisford's yacht marked against the sky, the
gleaming white hull rising from the blue of the lake.


CHAPTER IX
THE MAN IN GREY AGAIN
Burnville, despite his disconcerting experience with the
impostor on the Superior King, retained an outward show
of confidence. "I'm going to find him," he insisted. "If
the man in grey is not in town, he's somewhere on the
lakes."
Yet Laura Winright felt that all this show of con-
fidence was merely the bluff of a game loser.
Once more she conned the hand-print with Glory Adair,
"Tell me, Glory, what sort of man he really is ?”'
"Not the sort you saw at the Ocean House," declared
the nurse. “This hand belongs to no sailor or long-
shoreman or roustabout. Those fine lines wouldn't stand
the strain of handling casks and hauling ropes. This man
uses, not his hands, but his head.”
She paused. Her next words were disconcerting.
"When I find him and can read his entire hand and
not just the print of a few blurred lines, I'll prove to you
that he couldn't commit murder. Mr. Burnville is quite
mired?” she added.
"I'm afraid so." Laura meditated. “And what is the
meaning, Glory, of all this running about on your part?”
Glory smiled. Her duties as nurse were now merely
nominal. She shook a reproving finger. “Time enough
to tell you what I'm doing when it's done. Besides, there
is Mr. Annisford to keep you interested. When is he
going to take me for that promised yacht ride?”.
Laura pondered long after the nurse had gone. After
95


96 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
all, George Annisford was a fine fellow. Everyone said
so. To marry him was the one logical thing. She had
no right to put him off.
He came that evening, heralded by a huge bouquet
of American beauties.
"No," she protested, "it's too soon. I never thought
this would happen, you know.” She felt guilty in thus
temporizing; yet the next moment she found herself
seeking some new avenue of escape.
Annisford had no sentiment in his soul.
"Let's all take a trip up the lakes,” he suggested. “You
and I and the nurse and Turkey Bird-yes, and we'll take
Fan Sifton and Dog Rover. It'll be heaps of fun to
watch Fan. She's mortally afraid of the water. It'll
be one long hysteric from Genesis to Revelations. Per-
haps it'll do Dog Rover good, too; and if it doesn't,” he
concluded, cynically, "maybe he'll fall overboard and feed
the fishes."
"Poor old Rover!" whispered Laura.
“It would be a God's blessing for all concerned,”
pursued practical Annisford, "if that dog did die."
Afar across the lake, the sunset bestowed on the waters
a lingering kiss. Laura Winright watched in reverent
wonder.
“Isn't it beautiful!” she breathed.
"Hit the bullseye, chick, first shot! There's nothing
can put it over Old Lake Huron and Old King Sol when
it comes to mixing colours. It looks like a cupful of corn
syrup splattered over a bowl of tomatoes, or—or a
prodigious scrambled egg." He grinned.
She knew George Annisford of old. As a boy he had
boyishly made mock of things sacred to her. His ex-
uberant boyishness still clung. She forgave him-almost
--for was he not her Predestined Future? Yet the fibres
of her soul jarred painfully at his crude simile.


THE MAN IN GREY AGAIN
97
"There's nothing beautiful in nature that appeals to
you, George," she reproached.
“Now, chick, don't say that. I appreciate you."
Laura flushed.
"You put the kibosh on all the sunsets that ever came
or went. You've got any girl I ever met beaten a mile.
I guess I'm a bit weak on scenery, though,” he ruefully
admitted. "Scenery must have been above par when an
economical Providence prepared estimates on me. There's
not a speck of it in the inventory. I'd rather watch a bit
of action-a big Mogul down there pulling a hundred
heavy cars across the viaduct, or a pacer beating the
record. Too bad—but what can't be cured, must be en-
dured. Now, Nick Ross," he pursued, "loves sunsets.
I found him sitting up there in his den the other evening,
smoking and looking out the west window at Lake Huron,
brooding on the evening omelette and trying to hatch a
complete phonetescope out of it. He'll be a great man
some day if that thingumbob of his ever gets finished.
There's times when he laughs and I like the fellow, and
there's times when he looks as if he were going to write
poetry, and then he gets my goat.”
Laura, clasping her hands, stared into the sunset, her-
self brooding. Only two years ago, George's jovial banter
had charmed her. And now
Leaning from her rustic chair, she sought to pluck a
pink briar rose from a bush blooming nearby. She
pricked her finger on the thorns.
"Hold on, there. Why don't you give a fellow a
chance?” Annisford, with a grin, intervened. He
wrapped his handkerchief around the thorns, then,
gripping the stalk, with his sharp pocket-knife severed
the blossom.
“Thank you,” she said.
Simultaneously, the thought came, irresistibly sug-


98 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
gestive, that other men she had known would have gripped
the bush with bare, brave fingers, and then sentimentally
would have shown her the marks of the thorns.
She breathed the scent of the pale pink blossoms. The
perfume hinted of worlds of sentiment wherein big,
cheery, practical George Annisford had no place.
She heard the distant jangle of the telephone.
“That's Mr. Burnville, I suppose. He usually comes
to the house."
Katie Sparrow appeared.
“Miss Winright.”
“Who is it, Katie?”
"Please, it's Miss Sifton."
Laura went to the telephone. Miss Sifton had been
her Sunday School teacher at St. George's, and one of
her few close friends in the town.. She was a little,
bespectacled old maid who in these war times spent all
her spare moments knitting.
She was palpably excited.
"Can't you come over, Laura ? Right away. I've
something important to tell you."
“Tell me over the telephone.” Laura's curiosity,
aroused, would brook no delay.
"I daren't. Those girls at Central are always snoop-
ing.”
Laura hesitated. Burnville might come at any moment
to report on the day's work.
“Come over yourself, Miss Sifton. I'll send the car
for you."
“But-my knitting—".
“Bring your knitting.”
Laura called Nick Ross. She wondered if he had again
been brooding on the sunset, with that look which made
prosaic Annisford think of a poet. She smiled at the


THE MAN IN GREY AGAIN 99
thought, and gave her directions in a carefully common-
place tone.
Within ten minutes Miss Fan Sifton was seated beside
her on the porch, her busy needles clicking, Annisford
teasing her mercilessly about Dog Rover's ailments. For
many moments the little woman fought shy of her theme.
"Miss Adair," she said, as the nurse appeared, "is
there anything you could give poor, dear Rover to put
him out of his misery? The poor dog does suffer so!"
The nurse smiled ironically at this appeal to her talents.
Laura Winright fretted.
Then Miss Sifton surprised her by leaping right to
the heart of her subject.
"Laura Winright, do you believe in ghosts?”
"No. Why?"
"Because if there's such a thing as a ghost, I saw a
ghost last night."
"A ghost?"
"Your father's ghost.”.
Annisford checked his exuberant whistle. Glory Adair
gripped Laura's hand, encouragingly. For a moment
there was no sound save the methodical click of the
needles.
"Tell me, Miss Sifton," urged Laura.
The little woman coughed.
“Laura Winright, I could have sworn it was your
father. Last night, you know, was moonlight. I was
coming home from Harbour Park, toward nine o'clock,
and passed Castle Sunset. I just glanced across the lawn
toward the garage--you see that fringe of trees there,
along the cliff-"
She pointed toward the cedars.
"Yes, yes,” urged Laura, breathless.
"I saw someone stealing alongside those trees. For a
while he kept close to the shadow. Then, of a sudden,


LOO
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
he cut right across the lawn to the gate by the garage.
I saw him in the moonlight. And then”-she paused,
impressively—“then, thinks I, as sure as you're a saved
woman, Fan Sifton, that man is-Adam Winright."
Laura shuddered.
“Nonsense,” put in Annisford. "Fan Sifton, you were
dreaming—or worse.”
The intentness of the two young women checked his
hilarity.
“But”-Glory spoke "what made you think of Mr.
Winright? For, of course, it wasn't him.”
"It was his living image.” Her needles and her knitting
lay now in Miss Sifton's lap; Laura saw her shiver, and
from the lighted porch she peered across the darkening
lawn.
"It was his living image," she repeated. “Many and
many's the time I've seen him walking along that fringe
of cedars, in the early morning and in the evening. You
remember, Laura, it was his favourite walk ?"
Laura nodded.
"And this man was just his height, as near as I could
judge, and with a beard like his.”
“Black ?” interjected Glory.
"It did seem more like grey. He stood just a minute
in the moonlight, and I couldn't be sure. It was more
the stoop of his shoulders and the way he walked that
seemed familiar.”
Glory intervened again.
"Why didn't you tell us at once?”.
"I thought it might be fancy,” explained Miss Sifton.
"I didn't want to alarm you for nothing. But, the more
I thought of it, the more it seemed—”
She shivered into silence, and with trembling fingers
tried to resume her knitting. Annisford rose.


THE MAN IN GREY AGAIN 101
"I'll tell the police and have the chap pinched! Guess
I'll go down to the yacht, now.”
Laura watched him cross the lawn toward the garage.
She felt Glory Adair's fingers tighten upon hers. Click,
click, went the needles, loud in the silence.
The sun had vanished. Shadows carpeted the lawn.
The lake was a splash of sombre grey. Fanny Sifton,
a tiny, frightened spectre beneath the porch light, was
tremblingly dropping stitches.
“Oh!” she fairly screamed, as a step sounded on the
walk. Then, with an apologetic laugh: “Why, Mr.
Burnville, I thought you were a ghost.”
"Perhaps we had better go in,” suggested Laura.
Miss Sifton gathered up her knitting. Laura's glance
questioned Burnville. He shook his head. The older
woman missed this pantomime; her terrified glance was
searching the distant shadows where she had seen Adam
Winright.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she shrilled in panic. "Oh! Oh!”
"What is it, Miss Sifton?” Laura, herself frightened,
tried to quiet her.
"There! There he is !"
"Who?”
"Your father, Laura Winright.”
An instant the girl stood rooted to the spot in horror.
The fleeting hope shot through her that this was only a
nervous woman's delusion. Then, far back among the
cedars, she discerned a vague figure fitting to and fro.
It came nearer. It stepped into the light.
Laura cried out. In place of fainting, though, her
senses rallied to her aid.
“Glory! Mr. Burnville !!!
She did not wait for them. She ran down the porch
steps, and across the lawn. In her ears rang Miss Sifton's
hysterical call to her to come back.


102 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
The tall, stooping, bearded figure in grey still went
slinking along the cedar fringe. Laura felt her own heavy
heart beats. Her breath came pantingly. She knew that
in another minute she must collapse.
Still she ran.
She heard Burnville shouting to her.
"Here!” she cried. “Here he is !”
Laura plunged through a hedge, and found herself
right upon the man in grey. He sprang away from her,
with a strange, whining cry. She gripped his sleeve. A
moment they struggled. This was no ghost, she knew
now, but flesh and blood. He did not strike, but with a
fierce jerk wrenched himself free.
The girl gasped:
"Mr. Burnville. Run around the garage. Head him
off.”
Glory came up.
“He's right there,” Laura panted. "See."
The nurse took up the chase. Laura, sick and dizzy,
slumped to her knees on the grass. She heard Burnville
shouting, and Glory's answering halloo, and she tried
to struggle up but could not. Then there was the sound
of some one tearing through the undergrowth that clothed
the face of the hill.
She sank her face in her hands, weeping hysterically.
"Miss Winright!"
Nick Ross came out of the shadows. He had a cigar
between his teeth, but he tossed it aside. "What's the
matter?” he demanded. “Are you ill?” He proffered his
arm.
"It's—it's nothing at all.”
“Laura Winright, you're prevaricating. Here. Let
me help you back to the porch.”
Then she realized for the first time how very weak
she was. She crumpled, incontinently; and he caught her


THE MAN IN GREY AGAIN
103
up. She had a vague sense of being carried in strong
arms. Then she was lying on a settee on the porch, with
Glory Adair bending over her. In the background stood
Ross, his face anxious and perturbed.
“Did the man get away?" gasped Laura.
“We nearly had him, when Ross called us,” said the
nurse. "You'll be all right now. Don't worry. We'll
have the man in grey inside a few hours, Mr. Burnville
says."
Burnville came up.
“We'll get him." He was jubilant. "He's in town.
I've seen him. That's all I want."
Laura struggled up.
“But why?" she demanded. “Why does he come
back?''
Burnville gazed at her oddly. He coughed. The
cough was plainly a warning. Laura saw the chauffeur,
Ross, still standing in the background.
"Thank you, Ross," she said. "I'll be all right, now.
You may go."
She felt, self-reproachfully, that she should have said
more; that she should not have treated the man so like a
common servant. What a pity he was just a servant!
Burnville listened intently to the chauffeur's retreating
footsteps.
"Why?” repeated Laura.
"For one of two reasons," responded the detective.
"He may be a man with a delusion, mentally unbalanced,
unaccountable. Oh-he may have a very good reason for
coming back. His work may not be finished."


CHAPTER X
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
So George Annisford, yielding at last to Laura Win-
right's arguments, decided he would go up-lake alone,
and come to Maitland Port for her on his return trip.
"And then?” he insisted.
"Then?” she repeated; but the word held a question.
She had gained time, anyway; time, she argued with
herself, was all there was to it. She did not want to
marry so soon after her father's death. George should
not have claimed, so early, the fulfillment of her promise.
There was no other difficulty; the time of course would
come when she would marry him gladly, for was he not
the one man in the world for her?
When he came back-then, they could discuss the entire
problem quietly, sensibly, logically.
Thus she argued with herself, and was glad of the
respite. Then “It's all a lie !" she told herself in sudden
honesty. “I don't want to marry him, now or ever. Yet
I'm letting him go away thinking I have promised to
marry him when he comes back. I have promised, too.”.
Yes, that was the truth she had tried to evade with all
her mental side-steppings. It stared at her with red eyes
from her mirror.
It had been easy to say "Yes" to George Annisford
and wear his ring two years before. Then, she was
going to England, and marriage was a long way off.
It was easy now to say “Then?” with a questioning
uptilt, giving him to understand she would wed him when
104


106 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Ross had said, “I'm Nick Ross' and thrust out his hand
when he should have tipped his chauffeur's cap and stood
at attention. It explained, too, her own weakness now.
She was doing, with Annisford, not the best thing, but
the first thing that came to hand.
"There are things,” she said slowly, still in that patron-
izing tone, “things that are clearly, absolutely right, that
ought to be done, if-"
She hesitated, not finding just the words she sought.
The chauffeur kept his eyes on the road.
"If” he repeated. “There is no if when a thing is
absolutely right. It must be done regardless."
She relapsed into silence. The chauffeur, staring ahead,
gave the car an added spurt, apparently quite without
reason.
“Ross!"
“Yes, Miss Winright."
"We will go back."
Through the rest of the long ride she sat staring along
the wide white road, seeing always George Annisford-
George Annisford, going up-lake in his yacht, taking, not
her, but her promise.
He would come that afternoon to say good-bye.
Seated on the porch at Castle Sunset, she idly turned
the pages of a book, but her thoughts were far from it.
A footstep grated on the gravel walk. She glanced up.
“George! You are going?” She flushed, guiltily, for
through her whole being had surged relief.
"That's the word, chick."
Annisford, gayly doffing his cap, sat himself on the
steps at her feet.
Laura's book slid to the floor with a bang. Her
hands, disengaged, nervously clasped and unclasped, token
that her mind was busy. Her perplexing problem gripped
her anew. Through her mind surged the few words


108 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
it insists—I have thought it over and over. Everything
goes back to that. Have you ever really thought of it,
George?”
"I-?"
She did not wait for his answer.
"It is a very serious thing, George-marriage is a very
serious thing. It is for a long, long time, too. It seems
to me that one should think before it is too late—and I
have been thinking." Her voice grew firmer. “I must
be sure that I care enough for you. You must be sure
that you care enough for me. We must both be sure that
we're suited to one another. But are we, George?”.
She faltered.
"Of course we are," the man rejoined, encouragingly.
"Why, Laura, I'd never dream of marrying anyone but
you, and you—"
For a moment she did not answer. She hated to wound
his feelings; yet she felt that frankness, harshness, cruelty
even, would prove kindness in the end.
"Why, we've always known one another," he declared.
"Yet," she returned, quietly, "when you came to say
good-bye”
Rising, Annisford patted her genially on the shoulder.
“Why, Laura, that's just my way. I can't take any-
thing seriously. I'm built on the cheerful plan. But I
don't love you any the less because I don't throw a fit
when I go away. It's my nature—my training—to be
game in affliction—".
"You misunderstand me, George,” she said. “It is not
that you do not take on-but that I do not.”
An instant Annisford stood dumfounded; then laughed.
"I don't think any the less of you for that,” he re-
joined, imperturbably. "Fact is, I probably like you the
better that you don't drench my collars with your tears.
Come, now, Laura-don't bother your little head any


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 109
more about such things. Thinking never brings anything
but trouble. So don't think.”
Her lips tightened. His honest blindness, his genial
disregard of feelings that he could not fathom and did
not wish to understand, smiting her, yet spurred her into
harsher action. She must, it seemed, be outspoken, even
cruel, for his sake as well as for hers.
"When you came just now, George, to say good-bye,
I asked myself, 'Do I care for him?' And, George, I-
I could not answer 'Yes' to that question.”
Her whole tumultuous soul was in the gaze she fixed
on him. An instant later she was sobbing, she could not
have told why.
"It was hard for me to say it,” she whispered to her-
self. “Hard "
Gazing through her tears, she saw Annisford's pitying,
almost paternal smile. He refused to grasp the import of
her words.
"Laura, I know just what you need. A jolly outing
to some cheerful place where you'll meet lots of live
people. Just go away for a week or two, and have such
a good time that you won't find a minute to think—"
“And, George, till I do know that I can care for you,
that I do care for you as a wife should—things can never
again be as they were."
With a quick movement she pressed the ring into his
hand. The big man, opening his fingers, blinked at the
diamond as it sparkled in the afternoon sunshine.
“This man—Burnville ?” he muttered.
The question startled her.
She shook her head. “There is no one."
“No one?" he repeated, in puzzled fashion.
“No one." She gazed frankly into his eyes.
She fancied for an instant that his lips drew down at
the corners. A moment later he smiled at her, his manner


IIO
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
as carelessly cheerful as though he merely asked her for
a dance.
"It's just the one question, George," she pursued,
"whether I care or not. And I do not think I care."
An instant he stood with head bowed, a shadow resting
on his handsome face. At last he looked gayly up.
"By Jove, Laura, that's no compliment to me. Thrown
out-disqualified. It's no comfort, either. If you'd
named another starter in the race, I could have induced
him to withdraw." He smiled at his big fist, artistically
doubled.
She smiled too, for the first time, grateful that he was
not taking this ordeal so hard. It seemed not a tithe
so difficult for him to listen as for her to speak. “No
compliment to him”-his light, airy manner was, she
mused, no compliment to her; but it was a help without
which she could never have persisted.
"You would not !" she protested.
"You're right, Laura, I wouldn't. I'd wish him joy.
Not that I'd need to, girl-to my reckoning, you and joy
would be just the same.”
His spirits could not have been lighter had they been
chatting at a tennis match.
“I'm sorry, chick," he added, with a deep, unwonted
note of tenderness. "But, after all, I guess it's better."
"You won't feel badly, George,” she pleaded. She
felt that she owed him, for all his kindness, a little more
than she had said-some word of consolation, even though
he needed it so little. “Why, there's thousands of better
girls-girls better suited to you better than I am in every
way-"
With protesting hand uplifted, he gazed reproachfully
into her eyes.
"Don't, youngster! Don't try to kid me with a lot of


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS III
III
bosh like that. You're the best girl, Laura-always were,
are, and always will be.”
His voice thrilled with serene defiance.
“But, George, you mustn't waste your life for me."
Her tone pleaded. She laid a little hand lightly upon
his big one, which still fingered the ring with the glitter-
ing diamond.
"Waste my life, chick! Not I. Why, Laura, do you
know what I mean to do right now?”.
"You're going up the lakes—going on the Beatrice.”
“True for you," he responded, quickly. “But that's
not what I mean. Do you know what I intend to do
about what you just told me?”.
She gazed straight at him, an anxious question in her
wide eyes.
"What are you going to do?”.
"Just what I'd do if the big store were to burn down
and the fire insurance companies to break and all leave me
penniless. I'm going to begin again right at the be-
ginning, dear. I'm going to fight a man's fight, right
up from the foot of the hill. And, Laura, I'm going to
win you back. There's just one partnership for me, girl
- that's Annisford and Winright.”
Her look was soberly reproachful.
“No, George," she answered, in quiet, even tones, "you
will not do that. You will not try to win me.”
"Just watch me," he defied her.
"You will not do that, George," she insisted, “because
you are not a man to give me needless pain. For my
sake as well as for your own, George, you will give me
up, now—and for all time. For my sake—for yours-
you will not speak of these things again.”
He bowed his head, and for many moments was silent.
Anxiously she waited.
"It's not fair, Laura,” he at length burst forth. “Why,


112 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
you just put me out of court. I'm not getting a fighting
chance”
“But for my sake, George-for yours—you must," she
repeated, in tones quiet but decided. “These things end
here. In future we will not-must not—speak of them.”
She gazed at him with an air of finality. For a mo-
ment they both were silent. From the foot of the hill
sounded the deep-voiced, musical siren of the Beatrice.
“You are going?” Laura Winright asked.
“Yes.” He turned quite calmly toward the walk.
“That's the signal. The Beatrice is waiting. Good-bye,
Laura-”
With a quick step forward and a sudden movement he
caught her in his arms and kissed her fervently. She did
not shrink from him.
"It's the last time,” he declared, still smiling. “There,
youngster, I'm off. Guess I'll cut across the lawn and see
if Nick's car is in commission. Good-bye, chick, and
thank God you're rid of me."
“Good-bye,” she muttered.
He had taken a half dozen paces when, rising, she
hurried down the steps.
“George!"
He turned, his face illumined. Impetuously she ran to
him.
“We'll always be the best of friends, you know,
George,” she pleaded. “Always the best of friends."
She longed to console him, even though his smile told
her that she had inflicted no hurt.
"You've always been-you'll always be my very best
friend? Isn't that so?”.
“Why, sure, little girl!"
She stretched forth her hand. He clasped it warmly.
Tears leapt to her eyes. She gazed timidly down at the
grass.


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 113
“Good-bye,” she repeated.
She felt the warm hand-clasp relax.
"Good-bye, chick,” he answered, cheerily.
She did not watch him go. Swinging sharply in the
moment of parting, she gazed fixedly out across the blue
waters of the lake, lying far below. The June day was
aglow with sunshine that not alone thrilled the world
before her eyes, but crowded into her soul till there was
room for nothing else there. Never had she thought her
bondage so hard as now, when the snapping of her chains
opened to her all the undreamed-of joy of freedom. The
world was before her, and youth was hers.-
"Free!” she whispered joyously, racing toward the
cedars that bounded the lawn, her hands outstretched in
welcome to the blue lake that, free like herself, danced
with equal joy in the sunshine.
Afar across the harbour at her moorings lay the
Beatrice, with her white hull and burnished funnels and
taper spars, impatiently awaiting her master's coming.
Again the siren sounded.
"And George?” Laura Winright questioned, with a
touch of self-reproach.
Her eyes flashed toward the distant garage. She had
not heard the car. George must have passed long ago
through the latticed gate. She did not glimpse him any-
where about the brick building. Her eyes retraced the
path he must have taken across the lawn, till they came
home to the grass at her feet. In all that distance she
could not find him.
He might still be in the garage; or else, hurrying
faster than she had fancied, had turned the bend in the
roadway and was perhaps by this time descending Har-
bour Hill.
Hesitating a moment, Laura slowly took the path he
had followed. Half way to the lattice-fence, she halted,


114 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
her foot on the threshold of the little summer-house.
She peered in awe-struck silence into the semi-darkness
of the place.
George Annisford knelt on the ground, his head bowed
upon the rustic seat, his hands tight-clenched. His whole
figure quivered, but no sound escaped him.
The girl gazed at him a terrified moment, her soul filled
with a strange horror-horror of her own light-hearted
joy of but an instant before. Tears rushed to her eyes.
Instinctively she stretched forth her hands toward him,
and took one silent step across the threshold.
Then she halted, and her hands sank to her sides. Her
freedom had been bought, and each of them had almost
paid the price.
Without a word, without a backward glance, she turned
and, silent as in her coming, retraced her steps to Castle
Sunset.


CHAPTER XI
THE 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE
Laura Winright went straight to her room. There she
stayed till with a defiantly cheerful scream of the melo-
dious siren, the Beatrice sped like a flash of light down
the dark lane between the twin piers. She stayed, watch-
ing, till the taper spars merged in the horizon.
Yes, she was free!
Now she felt miserable; more miserable than ever in
her life before. She had done a selfish, unkind thing
to the one man who loved her; she had done it under the
hypocritical profession that it was for his sake as well
as for hers.
That Annisford's habitual good cheer might mask
deeper feelings she had never dreamed. The haunting
recollection of the unplumbed depths into which she had
gazed piled up misery for her in the days that followed.
More than once she was tempted to write Annisford,
to go back on what she had done, to bid him come to
Maitland Port for her on his south-bound trip.
Womanly pride alone restrained her. She was the sort
of girl who intuitively waits to be wooed. And, in her
insistence to shut off all possibility of a change of heart,
she herself had absolutely forbidden George Annisford
to woo her.
She could only wait, and feel miserable, and try to
comfort herself with the thought: “This search for the
man in grey comes first.”
I15


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
The next morning's mail brought a letter from Tom,
at Detroit.
"I've just been called to New York on important busi-
ness for the store, and will be gone a week. Burnville
has full authority to draw on Airth & Kinzie for any
funds he may need. If any messages come to Castle
Sunset for me, don't wait to forward them; open them
yourself and use your own judgment as to answering.”
He went on to detail the business which called him to
New York. There was a post-script, which Laura Win-
right did not at once notice:
"P. S. Keep a sharp look-out for this fellow Webster.
Burnville feels certain he's still hanging around Maitland
Port. If he takes the risk of staying, you may be sure
it's for no good purpose.”
The sweltering heat of midsummer drove Laura Win-
right to a hammock on the wide porch overlooking Lake
Huron. She rocked softly to and fro, pondering Tom's
letter, and particularly that post-script. Despite their
pursuit, the menacing man in grey had made a complete
getaway. There had been no glimpse of him since the
night Laura grappled with him on the lawn. Yet though
she never saw him, she felt his menacing presence always
near her.
A step on the porch and a boyish whistle heralded
Glory Adair-Glory Adair, no longer in starchy uniform,
but in a fluffy white, with a filmy parasol and an out-of-
doors smile illumining her brown eyes.
"I'm through,” she announced.
"Don't say that," urged Laura Winright. "Just sit
and talk to me, Glory. I can't let you go."


THE 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE 117
"You can't help yourself.” .
But the nurse did not go. She perched herself man-
nishly on the porch rail.
"I can't stay more than a few minutes. You'll see
my reason for staying that long if you turn your head.”
"Mr. Burnville !"
“Precisely."
Burnville came swinging up the walk. He glanced
quizzically at Glory. “My esteemed rival.” His smile,
as he sat down, was blandly irritating
"At your service, Mr. Burnville." Yet all the while
the brown eyes seemed to demand: "What brings you
here so early?"
"I wish to Heaven,” exclaimed Burnville, "that Andrew
Webster had the only grey beard on earth. I spent all
yesterday lining up a grey-bearded man who had been seen
in Ashfield township. False alarm, as usual! Miss Win-
right, we're going to get him. There's not a shadow of
doubt. He's here. He's hiding. He won't leave Mait-
land Port till he's accomplished his purpose, whatever
that is. And he can't stay around here without being
caught. . . . But you can't land the man you want with-
out running down a lot of false scents. I learned that
long ago."
A lambent fire played in Glory's eyes.
"Oh!" she observed.
“You know it, you cold blooded critter !" flashed Burn-
ville. “I've got a hundred people, Miss Winright, on the
look-out for that man in grey. I've seen every country
constable for miles around.”
"In short, the dragnet?” put in Miss Adair.
“Yes. The dragnet, as thorough as one can make it
in a place like Maitland Port."
"It's an excellent system—when you're after an
ordinary criminal.”


118 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
“So I think.”
“Only, this criminal isn't ordinary.”
“Oh?"
Burnville's monosyllable held a question.
In Glory's eyes danced a malicious light. She enjoyed
the daring game of teasing this practical criminal-hunter.
She liked Harry Burnville for his relentless thorough-
ness. She had no contempt for his methods; rather
respect, of a profound order.
"You're floundering,” she ventured. “You need a
helping hand? Mine ?” She extended it to him, a pretty
hand, very slim, and almost pallidly white.
He took the tips of her fingers.
“Mine without the asking ?”
She did not flush, as Laura Winright would have done.
“No. Not till your wits make a better showing. I'm
really sorry for you, Mr. Burnyille. May I help you with
a tip? I've a few minutes to spare. Is it a go? Then
listen.”
She leaned toward him, just a touch of insolence in
her smile. Burnville's satiric look did not change. They
admired and respected and hated one another very
thoroughly, thought Laura. She glanced across the
sweltering lawn.
"It's hot,” she protested. "Just see how that poor old
Madeira vine is drooping! Please don't fight, you two.”
"He won't. He's going to sit at the feet of Gamaliel
for a few minutes. You'll never catch that man, Mr.
Burnville.”
"Why?”
"Because you're not looking for him.”
“No ?”
"No. You're just looking for his alias.”
"Oh?"


THE 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE 119
1'
Harry Burnville, reticent, yet enquiring, retired behind
a Verdun of monosyllables.
"He's a forgery, this man in grey, this Andrew Web-
ster.''
Burnville smiled.
"I've discounted that. Either ‘Andrew Webster' is an
alias, or the real Andrew Webster is travelling under an
assumed name. I surmise, too, that even the grey beard
may be a disguise."
Glory laughed.
Laura resented the laugh. Glory Adair, she felt, had
her drawbacks. She was a bit unfeeling. She discussed
these issues with the calm professional manner of an
experienced surgeon conducting a clinic. To Laura Win-
right, they were issues of life and death.
"Where you professional detectives are hampered is
in not knowing palmistry. It would help you immensely,
Mr. Burnville. Why don't you take a course?".
She was deadly serious.
"I mean it. Oh, you scientific detectives now-a-days
are marvellously equipped. You mug every criminal or
possible criminal on earth. You have your rogues' gal-
leries, your filing cabinets full of statistics, your special-
ists, your Bertillon records of every poor wretch who
falls into your clutches, yet-yet you blindly ignore the
one master-key that will unlock the mystery of every
crime. The human hand!”
Burnville smiled, sceptically.
"It is very interesting,” he said, with mock politeness.
"And very true. Look at this, Mr. Burnville.". She
caught Laura's hand. "If this girl were a stranger to
you—if you arrested her on suspicion—you could photo-
graph her, and look up her record, and take her Bertillon
measurements and her finger-tip signatures. But wouldn't
it be worth infinitely more to sit down with a microscope


120 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
and in a few minutes tell the world specifically whether
she did or did not commit the crime of which she stood
accused? You could do that-if you could read her
hand.”
"We haven't this—this Andrew Webster's hand-
print,” retorted the detective.
“Except on the telegram."
Burnville hesitated.
“Ye-es,” he admitted.
"You doubt it?”
"I suppose it's a logical inference that they are one
and the same. What does the hand-print tell you?”
“That is part of my case. It will be part of yours when
you learn palmistry. But we have Adam Winright's
hand-prints. I have them here." She opened her port-
folio. "I secured them nearly two years ago.”
Laura handled the grimy fragments of blotting paper
with a sense of shrinking. They called back the lighted
parlour, her father lying under the white sheet, and the
clammy hand she grasped in hers while she patiently
studied the lines.
“What does that hand-print tell you?" challenged
Glory. "Nothing. But it tells me that you're mistaken
about Adam Winright handling those letters we found
in his desk.”
"Oh?” Harry Burnville entrenched himself behind the
sceptical monosyllable.
"How do I know? See these finger-tips. This line of
the head. System. Order. Steadiness. A clear, orderly,
business-like life, all through. Such a man would not
leave letters lying loose in a drawer "
“Under stress of excitement?" Burnville was in-
terested despite himself.
"Surely?” agreed Laura.
"System. Order. Steadiness," repeated Glory, "faith-


THE 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE 121
fully followed through thirty busy years. You can't
change that nature in a day. You say Adam Winright
was alarmed and excited, so he left those letters lying
loose. Dear girl, your father just couldn't do that. It
would have been a crime against his nature. Look at
your hand, Laura-see those impetuous lines, and that
depression, and those finger-tips. You can't shift one
of those lines, or build up that depression, or grow finger-
tips like mine. These old, square fingers spell steadiness
and self control, dear; yours indicate impetuosity turning
to resolve; you, Mr. Burnville, you”-she laughed-
"you're the man who keeps his own counsel, works out
his own campaign, thoroughly-oh, so thoroughly! Yet
you lack the wider vision. Whatever we poor humans
do, we do according to those lines. They are the lines
of our destiny. We may do big things or little things,
mean things or generous, bold or timid-but we do them
just the one way our hand indicates. Each hand has its
dominant characteristic. Mine is steadiness; yours,
Laura, is impetuosity plus stubbornness; yours, Mr. Burn-
ville, is secrecy and thoroughness; and—Adam Win-
right's was system.”
Her eyes sparkled. Deep conviction rang in her clear
tones. Yet Burnville's face wore a bland smile, covering
all hint of feeling.
“Under stress—?"
"Mr. Burnville, listen, won't you? Under the stress
of knowing that he was to die in a few hours, perhaps
in a few minutes, Adam Winright walked to the telephone,
called Doctor Chalmers, gave him directions in an un-
excited voice, and then returned to the table where you,
Laura, found him. That was the supreme stress, and
he stood the test. He was not shaken by that; would
he be entirely unnerved by threats?"


122 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Laura Winright found no answer. Burnville, if he
found one, did not voice it.
"Adam Winright never saw those letters."
"Glory!”
"I've said it.”
“But-in dad's own desk-".
"I mean it, just the same. Take any circumstance you
like. Look at those old books and papers we found, all
tied and arranged in order. Look at your own letters,
Laura, in that same desk, every one of them arranged by
date. And then Mr. Burnville picks up this bunch of
loose letters, lying every-which-way, and I'm dis-
gusted!”
The jangle of the telephone indoors mingled with her
concluding exclamation. She disregarded it. The
mockery of a scowl crossed her fair face.
Burnville spoke.
“I have anticipated a disguise," he said, complacently.
“I have calculated on an alias. When we find this man,
he will be grey-bearded, wearing a shabby grey suit. He
may not be Andrew Webster. He may be rich or poor
-it doesn't matter. He does exist. We know that.
We've all seen him. And I'll get him. Perhaps sooner
than you think, you precious sceptic.”
Laura had gone, unnoticed by either. In the engross-
ing argument, the disputants disregarded even the op-
pressive heat. Despite the lake breeze, the air hung
heavy.
Laura Winright returned.
“The telephone, Mr. Burnville."
Burnville rose.
"I hate to leave the field to you, Miss Adair. But I'll
come back to fight it out. . . . I left word at the hotel
that I could be reached here,” he added, in explanation.


THE 'PHONE MESSAGE FROM NILE 123
He returned in a moment, once more his brisk self.
He had no time for argument; he was bent on business.
“Thank you, Miss Adair, for your neat disquisition.
Theory is an excellent thing, particularly if it's perfectly
sound. In the next twenty-four hours I hope to re-
ciprocate by demonstrating the results of practical work.
Of course I don't tell you everything, but I may remark,
that the Nile constable apparently had an awful cold.”
Glory gazed at Laura Winright while the detective's
heels crunched the gravel.
“That means," she interpreted, "that he's just got a
telephone message from Nile, a little hamlet away out in
the country. From the constable there. It concerns the
man in grey. And Harry Burnville thinks his chase is
ended.” She took up her portfolio. “Well, Miss Win-
right, I'm going. My patient, I think, can survive with-
out me.”
Laura Winright spent the sultry day in a state of
nervous apprehension. Burnville's absolute certainty
stood out in strong contrast to Glory's plausible theoriz-
ing. Laura did not know which to take at its face value.
There was, too, haunting her every moment the imminence
of developments of which the detective had given only
a hint.
From Maitland Port to Nile was several hours' drive.
Probably Burnville would have a long chase after he
got there. She might not hear from him till nightfall;
maybe not till next morning.
Despite the oppressive heat, her nervous apprehension
drove her to any form of action. She called the garage,
intending to take out the car. No one answered. Ross,
evidently, had deserted his post again.
Early evening found her again on the porch, panting
with the intense, lingering heat. She would welcome a
breeze, even if it were a hurricane.


124 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Katie appeared in the doorway.
“The telephone, Miss !” she announced. "For you."
Laura did not wait to argue. She knew what to expect.
The message might, indeed, be mere trivial gossip, and
-yes, it might be from Burnville, the message for which
she had all day been waiting
Just outside the library door, she caught up the re-
ceiver.
“This is Laura Winright. Who is speaking?”
She heard only a strange gabble-a man's voice, but
no distinguishable words.
"Please repeat that,” she urged.
“This is Harry Burnville.” The words at last shaped
themselves clearly out of the gabbling undertone. The
voice seemed strange, excited, a bit hoarse. "Miss Win-
right, I have him—I have the man in grey."


CHAPTER XII
THE RIDE IN THE STORM
"So Mr. Burnville was right,” thought Laura. She
could picture him gloating over Glory Adair, blandly
triumphing in this speedy vindication. “Tell me all about
it!" she urged, aloud.
The answering voice was hurried and excited.
"I'm sorry, Miss Winright, but there are reasons—you
can understand, of course-I really can't tell you over the
telephone"
For the moment Laura saw no reasons. She filled the
transmitter with eager urgings. The detective's voice
cut in:
"It's impossible. More than that, if you wish to see
the man in grey alive—to hear his story from his own
lips-you must come at once.”
"Where are you?"
"I am at Robert Carruthers'-984 ring 21-on the
Colborne Road, just past Otter Creek. You know the
deep gully—?”
“Yes—with the white wooden bridge?” She knew
Robert Carruthers and his plump, good-natured wife;
they were friends of her old Sunday School teacher, Miss
Sifton, and Laura had spent an occasional afternoon at
the farm-house before she went abroad. “I know the
place. A cottage with spruce trees and a tall white fence
in front?”
“That's it. The second house past the bridge on the
right-hand side.” Manifestly, Burnville was eager to
.
125


THE RIDE IN THE STORM 127
meant anything, had come more by accident than through
design. What had the man in grey to tell? Now that
the dénouement was crowding so close, the girl shrank
from it, appalled at what it might disclose.
In the midst of such musings she roused herself with
a start.
One thing was essential. That was to reach Car-
ruthers' with the least possible delay. “If you wish to
see him alive ... you must come at once." Burnville
had said that. The message was imperative.
What was she to do?
Before she realized what she did, she called the Bar-
racks. It was only when a nurse answered the call that
Laura remembered, with a flush, Burnville's emphatic
warning to keep silence. Glory, fortunately, had gone out
for the evening. The nurse did not know when she would
be back.
Laura breathed relief.
She was left entirely to her own resources. That much
was plain. And her own resources were limited to a
rapid motor trip to the Carruthers' farm, leaving Mait-
land Port with the least possible delay.
She went to the window. The sun was sinking in the
crimsoned waters of the lake. There was a hint of breeze
stirring the cedars on the hillsidevery faint, the merest
zephyr. On the lower edge of the huge ball of fire in
the west clung a dark speck of cloud. Laura's gaze took
in the distant garage.
When last she called, in the afternoon, Nick Ross was
away. He might be away now.
Burnville's call had been insistent. Yet Laura Win-
right sat a moment, thinking of Nick Ross as Annisford
had jestingly pictured him, staring into the sunset with
the eyes of a poet. Despite herself, she could not help


128 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
linking that picture with her own vision of Annisford
himself going up-lake in his beautiful yacht, alone.
If it had been possible for her to send Annisford away,
the fact was due to Nick Ross—to what Ross had said
on that drive to the Black Hole. His were the words
that had spurred her faltering soul to cruel action. For
the first time she realized it. She almost hated him for
it. He had led her to send away the one man who loved
her—why? She found no answer.
Like Nick Ross, she stared into the sunset, watching
the tiny cloud slowly grow till it cast a shadow across the
lake.
She started up, and went to the black box in the Ghost
Room. She sat before it a long time, indecisive. She
found herself strangely hesitant. It was as though she
were in the presence of Ross himself, tall, straight, sun-
burned, with his devil-may-care swagger and his poet's
eyes, his cynical jest and his heart full of sentiment.
She shrank from him, while she realized it with a shock
-Andrew Webster perhaps lay dying at Carruthers'
waiting to confess himself to her.
She lifted the receiver from the black box. If Ross
were not there, she could get a public taxicab in a few
minutes. She would. She hoped Ross were not there.
She almost dreaded to meet him.
The chauffeur's level voice cut into her thoughts.
“Hello, Castle Sunset !"
“Ross?”
She felt her heart beat violently, and her breath came
in nervous gasps. She wondered if he could hear the
message she hardly heard herself.
“I must-positively must-go out to the country this
evening, about fifteen miles. Can you have the car ready
in ten minutes ?”
Had he heard? Or would he stupidly insist on her


THE RIDE IN THE STORM 129
going over the entire message? Anticipating that, she
tried hard to control her nervousness.
The level voice spoke again.
“In four minutes and forty-three and a half seconds,
Laura Winright.”
His devil-may-care laugh floated to her over the wire.
She hung up the receiver, angry at his presumption,
no, almost angry! In another minute she was laughing.
How like the fellow it was!“Ross,” she had said, as to
a common servant. “Laura Winright,” he had answered,
as to a bosom friend. The impertinence of the man!
After all, he was a common servant-what a pity, when
the Lord had made him so uncommonly likeable!
Nervously she made ready. The chauffeur had the car
at the curb within four minutes. Laura Winright hur-
ried down the gravel walk. Nick Ross, standing with
his hand on the open door, spoke:
“Isn't it chilly enough for a coat?”
She gave him a bright smile.
“I'm shivering!" she jested.
Then she noticed that the top of the car was up. Yes,
and his eyes were serious.
"You've six minutes and twenty-one seconds to spare.
Get a coat of some sort-preferably a rain-coat with a
real, waterproof guarantee.”
Laura followed the direction of his gaze. The western
sky was ominously shadowed. The tiny cloud of a few
moments before had grown into a monstrous shape that,
like a dark bird, overhung the lake and with the tips of
its far-spreading wings shadowed the land.
"That means a whale of a storm," commented Nick
Ross. "If it's a pleasure drive you're planning, I'll head
the car right back to the garage.”
"It's not a pleasure drive.” She deliberately made her


130 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
tone cold and aloof. The man needed to be put in his
place, if that were possible.
She cast a thoughtful glance toward the lowering sky;
then went into the house. In the hallway she encountered
Mrs. MacTurk.
It was, she remembered, the old woman's night out.
And Katie had gone. She had to leave the house alone.
Any other time she would have hesitated. But with the
menacing man in grey safely located and too ill to move,
that did not matter.
"Lock everything, Mamma Judy," she commanded.
"I'll be back in a little while. I'll take a key.”
Within a few minutes the car was speeding around the
river bend and down the hill toward the Saltford bridge.
“Robert Carruthers, Colborne Road, second house past
Otter Creek—and hurry." That order, she mused, cov-
ered everything.
The rumbling of the car across the long bridge was
thunderous in the close air. Turning her head a little,
Laura's eyes searched the west, whence advancing legions
of black clouds were hurling themselves toward the zenith.
Low, fitful lightning flashes ran along the sky.
A cool breeze smote her cheek as, sweeping through
Saltford, the car turned up the Colborne Hill. From far
across the lake came the muffled roll of thunder. Laura
glanced at Nick Ross. He leaned a little forward, his
expression animated, as though the menacing storm were
a whole-hearted joy to him.
She put on her coat. She shrank from even a casual
glance at Ross. She found herself hoping he had not
noticed, would not notice, the coat, but—the slapping
wind grew chill.
They swept past the white buildings of Point Farm.
Almost imperceptibly the chauffeur was speeding up the
car. The road was quite deserted. Pedestrians were


132 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Then, on the hood of the car, came the heavy drum
beat of the rain—first a rat-tat-tat of huge drops, then
the gushing roar of a united downpour.
Along the road the headlights, still gleaming, marked
an uncertain path. Again Nick Ross spoke, but this
time he did not turn: Laura sensed that his keenest
watchfulness was needed to pick the way.
"It's a beautiful little hurricane. There's never been
one like it on the west shore, I'll wager. Can you stand
it? Really— "
She saw neither Ross nor himself; only the man she
sought at the end of the road, dying, with his message
unheard.
"I have to reach Carruthers'."
"See how those trees are bending." She fancied at
last a note of anxiety in his voice. “There goes a
branch.” She heard it whip the hood as it fell. “This
road may be blocked anywhere by a tree. Then, the
Otter Creek bridge is rotten If the road's blocked- ”
"If the road is blocked, then we-I, at least—will go
on foot. But, storm or no storm, I intend to reach Car-
ruthers.'” The rage of the elements menaced her, but
they could not make her afraid.
The car swerved, avoiding some danger that she could
not see. It rocked like a tiny cockle-shell on the ocean.
Laura clutched the cloak-rail beside her.
"We daren't go on," insisted Ross.
“Are you afraid ?”
The lightning lit a clear road for a hundred yards
ahead. He turned, for the first time since the storm
broke.
“Afraid? Nick Ross?" His white teeth gleamed in
a smile. "Say, this is the real thing! It beats the old
phonetescope a thousand miles. Only”—the smile van-
ished—“I'm a bit afraid for you."


134 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
She sensed rather than saw that Ross had flung him-
self backward in the seat.
"Steady, Miss Winright. Don't lean forward. The
least weight may jar us loose.”
Apprehension shot through her. The thrill of excite-
ment gave place to sickening reaction. The intoxication
of her speed-madness had gone, leaving her weak.
“There is probably no danger.”
His tone was reassuring: but she knew that he had
discerned in the darkness some peril she could not see.
"What is it?"
She strained her eyes into the night.
"No," he repeated, sternly, “do not lean forward. Sit
back.” He turned cautiously, and, reaching out his arm,
snapped open the door beside her. “You must get down.
I daren't leave this seat to help you."
She silently obeyed. Outside, she stood in drenching
rain and inky darkness.
A flash of fire lit heavens and earth. Below her lay
a gaping chasm, its depths black and fathomless. From
it there loomed a skeleton framework of timbers sway-
ing and creaking in the gale. The car hung on the edge
of the stone-work, its front wheels dangling over the brink
of the chasm.
"Oh!" she cried, shrilly; and, shrinking from the gap-
ing maw beneath her, flung herself against the car.
She felt the car give. She was flung, sprawling, in the
roadway. Above the dying roll of the thunder and the
relentless swish of the rain came a terrible grinding and
crashing.
The car was gone. Laura Winright stared a moment
into inky darkness; then the driving rain blinded her.


CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE RIDE
Laura cried out in mortal terror; but no answer rose
from the darkness. There was only the wind whipping
her face, and the ceaseless, drenching swish of the rain.
The car, rumbling and crashing, had doubtless reached
the bottom of the gully instantly
"He didn't cry out. Ross didn't,” she told herself,
hopefully. "If he'd fallen with the car he'd have shouted.
He was just getting out; of course he's safe. Ross!
Ross!" she called.
For the first time she was conscious that the rain had
drenched her to the skin. She shivered, and wondered
why Ross did not come, or call.
A lightning flash lit the desolate road. Laura saw, with
horror, that she was alone. .
Trembling, sick, she groped her way toward the edge
of the abutment. She knelt as close as she dared, and
stared into the shadowy gulf, trying to picture the scene
below as she had known it in daylight. There was a wide,
deep gully, through which a shallow creek trickled amid
boulders; and, spanning it, the old, wooden bridge.
Plucking up hope, she shouted into the gulf, but there
was no response.
Vaguely she remembered a precipitous footpath down
the side of the gully to the edge of the creek. When next
the lightning came her quick eyes found the path.
The next minute she went stumbling downward in
135


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Then, on the hood of the car, came the heavy drum
beat of the rain—first a rat-tat-tat of huge drops, then
nazarat o muge u op, men
the gushing roar of a united downpour.
Along the road the headlights, still gleaming, marked
an uncertain path. Again Nick Ross spoke, but this
time he did not turn: Laura sensed that his keenest
watchfulness was needed to pick the way.
"It's a beautiful little hurricane. There's never been
one like it on the west shore, I'll wager. Can you stand
it? Really "
She saw neither Ross nor himself; only the man she
sought at the end of the road, dying, with his message
unheard.
"I have to reach Carruthers'."
"See how those trees are bending." She fancied at
last a note of anxiety in his voice. “There goes a
branch.” She heard it whip the hood as it fell. “This
road may be blocked anywhere by a tree. Then, the
Otter Creek bridge is rotten If the road's blocked "
"If the road is blocked, then we1, at least—will go
on foot. But, storm or no storm, I intend to reach Car-
ruthers.'” The rage of the elements menaced her, but
they could not make her afraid.
The car swerved, avoiding some danger that she could
not see. It rocked like a tiny cockle-shell on the ocean.
Laura clutched the cloak-rail beside her.
"We daren't go on," insisted Ross.
“Are you afraid?”
The lightning lit a clear road for a hundred yards
ahead. He turned, for the first time since the storm
broke.
“Afraid? Nick Ross?" His white teeth gleamed in
a smile. "Say, this is the real thing! It beats the old
phonetescope a thousand miles. Only”--the smile van-
ished—“I'm a bit afraid for you."


THE RIDE IN THE STORM 133
“Then go on.”
“D'you mean it?"-eagerly.
“Go on."
A thunder crash emphasized her words. The man
centred his every attention on the wheel and the road
ahead. To her impatient fancy he seemed reducing
speed. Did he mean to stop anyway, regardless ?
"Faster,” she cried, leaning forward lest the clamour
of the storm drown her words.
The car bounded ahead, skidding to and fro on the
slippery roadway. Suddenly it turned out; a fallen tree
from an adjoining field lay across the road. Ross turned
almost into the ditch. For an instant the car balanced
dangerously. With steady hand the chauffeur made the
difficult turn. Laura felt her heart leap when a light-
ning flash illumined the danger they were passing.
Ross told her, in jerky exclamations. He slackened
speed a little.
"Keep going,” she urged, recklessly. “We're almost
there."
"I know that. The Otter Creek bridge must be just
ahead. It's old and due for demolition any day. You
can't lean against it without hearing it creak.” He did
not look around. "There's no telling what a gale like
this might do. Oh, I'll get you there, Laura Winright,
but I mean to keep you safe, whether you will or no.
See! There's the bridge, right ahead."
He flung his weight on the brake. Rising, she leaned
forward. She caught his arm.
"No. You must not stop.”
He tore his arm free. The car halted, with a jerk,
followed by violent jarring and grinding. The headlights
went out. Blank darkness lay all about them.
"Why did you stop?”


CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE RIDE
Laura cried out in mortal terror; but no answer rose
from the darkness. There was only the wind whipping
her face, and the ceaseless, drenching swish of the rain.
The car, rumbling and crashing, had doubtless reached
the bottom of the gully instantly.
“He didn't cry out. Ross didn't," she told herself,
hopefully. "If he'd fallen with the car he'd have shouted.
He was just getting out; of course he's safe. Ross!
Ross!" she called.
For the first time she was conscious that the rain had
drenched her to the skin. She shivered, and wondered
why Ross did not come, or call.
A lightning flash lit the desolate road. Laura saw, with
horror, that she was alone. -
Trembling, sick, she groped her way toward the edge
of the abutment. She knelt as close as she dared, and
stared into the shadowy gulf, trying to picture the scene
below as she had known it in daylight. There was a wide,
deep gully, through which a shallow creek trickled amid
boulders; and, spanning it, the old, wooden bridge.
Plucking up hope, she shouted into the gulf, but there
was no response.
Vaguely she remembered a precipitous footpath down
the side of the gully to the edge of the creek. When next
the lightning came her quick eyes found the path.
The next minute she went stumbling downward in
135


136 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
the darkness, slipping, sliding, clinging to the rank grass.
At every flash she strained her eyes to pierce the depths.
Unexpectedly she felt her foot slip. She was falling.
Instinctively she flung herself face downward on the steep
bank, clinging with tenacious fingers to the long grass.
For a long moment she lay thus, her heart pounding,
the rain beating violently upon her. Then, feeling her
way cautiously, she once more found the path, and re-
sumed her slow descent.
The next flash showed her the car, upturned.
"Ross! Hello, Ross !" she cried.
Ross did not answer.
"He's dead!” she groaned.
She forgot danger. No longer trying to pick her way,
she stumbled, fell, rolled in a crushed heap among the
stones. Bruised and sore, she presently found herself
on her feet, and staggered blindly across the boulder-
strewn level at the bottom of the gully.
She ran against the car. The impact hurled her back.
The machine lay wrecked, its wheels in air. With
anxious, trembling fingers Laura tore aside the curtains.
She thought she saw Ross inside, crushed, dead, and
uttered a little cry, and shrank away, with face averted.
Then, guided by another illuminating flash, she went
stumbling over the stones.
"Nick!" she cried, and knelt beside him where he
lay, silent, insensible.
With nervous fingers she loosed his collar, tore open
his shirt. She listened, anxiously, and, hearing nothing,
bowed her head with a choking cry. Then, wildly, she
started up.
"He's alive !" she gasped. "He's alive!" Scarcely
knowing what she did, she knelt again, chafing his cold
hands.
He could not lie there. She must do something.


THE END OF THE RIDE
137
What, she did not know. Her impetuosity ran far ahead
of her reason. She tried to gather him in her arms, to
carry him; and sank in a moment, panting, exhausted,
with her heavy load.
Ross groaned.
The drenching rain was reviving him, but she did not
know it. The groan terrified her anew. She became
suddenly conscious that she was standing in water. The
creek, swollen by the rain, was slowly rising about the
boulders. Panic-stricken, the girl shouted again and
again for help; but there was no answer.
In her desperation she tried to think collectively. She
must leave Ross here. She could not carry him. She
must go for help. There was a house just a few steps
past the bridge, on the further side of the creek. Car-
ruthers' was still further, but she could not go that far.
She gave the chauffeur one last glance. The waters
surely could not rise that far in the few minutes she
would be gone. “I'll be right back," she whispered into
his unheeding ears.
Then she went running over the stones, across the
uneven creek bed, stumbling, falling, but ever running
on. She came to a shallow, foaming torrent. She
plunged in, above her ankles, above her knees. The
chill of the water, colder than the rain, made her cry
out, and the slippery rock gave uncertain footing. She
went resolutely on. She must get help; she must get help
at once. All other things were blotted out of her mind.
She found herself, how she never knew, painfully drag-
ging herself up the further bank.
"It's only a step,” she told herself, “only a step past
the crest." Yet it was a long time—it seemed an endless
time_before, slipping and falling and trying again, she
gained the crest. She glanced back upon the gully,
gaping blackly behind her; then, in sheer terror of the


138 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
rising water, ran up the road, calling in vain hope of
someone hearing her.
She turned into the first farm lane, and, shivering.
stumbled to the door of the house. Impatiently sheti
knocked again and again. She fancied people moving
about. She heard ghostly noises within and without, the
drip of the rain, the swish of branches.
"Oh, God, will they never come!” she groaned. ?
She could fancy the striking of the match, the lighting
of lamps, slow-minded question and answer—and all the il
while Nick Ross dying down there in the gully, anci
Laura Winright waiting on the doorstep, knocking her
knuckles sore, calling for any help, praying vainly-yes, i
vainly.
She stepped back a pace from the doorstep, and
glanced up. The windows were all black. She turned
and ran down the walk. She could not wait. She must
keep moving. She ran on up the road. She must get
to Carruthers'-Carruthers'
It was a few minutes' walk on a summer day, but now,
toward midnight, in the pouring rain and the darkness,
it seemed miles strung endlessly on miles. With each step
the girl felt her strength failing, and yet tenaciously she
kept on-on-on-every minute picturing to herself what
must happen if she did fail, if help did not get to Nick
Ross before the rising waters reached him.
She staggered in at the gate. In an upstairs window
she glimpsed a light. Wildly she beat upon the door, and
called out at the top of her voice.
She could not wait. She kept on knocking and calling.
At length the faint light upstairs shifted, and then came
slow footsteps. Still she best at the door.
It was flung open. The farmer stood there, in pa-
jamas, lamp in hand, staring at the bedraggled girl.


THE END OF THE RIDE 139
“Good God!” he cried. “Wife, come here. It's Laura
Winright. Come in, girl. How d'you get here?”
“No, no," she cried. "I can't come in. I must get
back.” Already she was edging away. “Come right
down to the gully. There—there's a man dying—the
car-"
"Just wait a minute,” commanded the farmer. "Just
a minute"
· But Laura, frantic, refused to wait. Breathing hard,
she went running back along the muddy road. Would
"hey think to telephone a doctor ? Why hadn't she
thought? It was too late, now—she must get there be-
fore those terrifying waters reached Ross. She must
get back and help him up.
She went stumbling down the steep declivity, calling
to him with every step. She fancied, suddenly, an an-
swering cry. She halted a moment, and shouted, then
strained her ears; but there was no response save the
cry of wind and rain.
Before she knew it, she was shivering knee deep in
the creek. She gasped with the shock of the water, yet
a moment later she breathed easier. It did not come
above her knees.
She found herself beside him.
“Nick! Nick Ross !"
She leaned close.
“Nick Ross! Can · you hear me?" But he lay still.
She listened. Yes, he breathed. He was alive.
In frantic impulse she kissed him.
His eyes unclosed.
“Laura Winright !"
"Thank God!" she breathed.
He tried to pull himself up on his elbow; then, with
a groan, collapsed.
"You're dying !" she cried, in affright.


140 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
He gripped her hands in his. Into her soul for the
first time crept a hint of shame.
"You're all safe?” he questioned, anxiously.
“Yes, yes, but you—?”.
She fancied his devil-may-care smile, though it was
too dark to discern more than a white patch where his
face was.
"Not more than three injuries are fatal. I'll survive
the rest.” Then, quickly, the laugh went out of his voice.
Anxiety crept in, tense, terrible.
"Laura Winright, was it true?”.
"What?” She felt herself flushing. She was glad he
could not see her face.
"Is it true that you—that you kissed me?"
"I've got to get you out of here,” she insisted. "Can
you walk-Ross?"
"Is it true?”
“No, no," she protested, frantically.
"Oh, but it is.'
"But you can't lie here in the rain-suffering"
“Then answer me, girlie.”
She did not. Again the reproachful thought came to
her of what she might have done. She stumbled to the
car, and, tugging desperately, staggered back at last under
a load of cushions.
"Here! Let me lift your head.” She tried to do as
Glory did, and failed.
“That's dandy," he said. "I feel like a prince. And
you did kiss me? It's glorious if it's true.”
"Would they never come?" she wondered. She stared
across the chasm, fancying lanterns, yet finding only
darkness.
"No, no."
"But it is true. I know."
She flushed. She had sacrificed her womanliness for


THE END OF THE RIDE 141
a man who-oh, she hated him! So her thoughts jumped
incoherently to and fro, always coming back to the cry,
half-uttered, half-inarticulate: “Will they never, never
come?”
"I know.”
“You deceived me. You were shamming,” she cried,
angrily. “Then I did hear you calling when—when—"
“No, no, Laura Winright. I'll never tell a soul. It's
my secret-yours and mine, and we'll keep it to our-
selves.” He was the old, devil-inspired, impudent, like-
able Nick. She could not go on hating him.
Lightning lit the sky, the chasm, the wreckers of the
car-yes, and lit Nick's face. She saw that, jest though
he would, he was suffering.
"Nick!” She took his hand. All anger had melted;
she knew now just what he had come to mean in her
life.
She glanced up. On the distant slope she saw a flicker
of yellow light. A loud “Halloo!" floated across the
chasm.
"Here! Here!" she answered.
Then she leaned close.
“They're coming,” she whispered.
“Yes."
“Nick.”
Yes, it was for his sake she had sent Annisford away
—for his sake, because of him, yet never knowing just
what impulse moved her. She gasped. "Nick,” she re-
peated.
“Halloo! Halloo !" came the call, now from the midst
of the surging creek. “Miss Winright! Where are
you?” The farmer waved his lantern, trying to light
the uncertain way.
Laura did not answer him this time. She leaned close


142 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
to the fallen man. “Nick," she repeated, and his arms
closed about her, and her lips met his.
“Now,” he said, in mockery, "that settles all disputes.”
She struggled to her feet.
"Here!” she cried.
Laura Winright sat by the cheerful wood-fire in the
Carruthers' dining room, clad in a grey wrapper built for
the buxom housewife, her feet encased in slippers many
sizes too large. She waited, anxiously.
Farmer Carruthers came presently.
"I guess he'll be all right. We made him as comfort-
able as we could, and he's gone off to sleep. Anyway, the
doctor can't get here for hours. There's nothing to do
but wait.”
Laura Winright rocked nervously to and fro. Sud-
denly she halted, staring, wide-eyed, at the farmer.
For the first time since the car crashed into the gully
she remembered her mission.
"And the man?" she demanded. “Thad Smith? I
have to see him. How is he? Where is he?”
She pelted the bewildered farmer with incoherent ques-
tions.
"Thad Smith ?” he muttered. “Thad Smith? Thad
Smith?”
“Where's Mi. Burnville ?"
“Burnville ?"
The farmer was stupid. Laura Winright looked and
voiced her impatience.
"Mr. Burnville. He's here, isn't he? Why, of course,”
she hurried on. "He telephoned from here this after-
noon.” She gasped, already a suspicion forcing itself
on her. “You don't mean—there's a hired man here
named Thad Smith, isn't there? Or Andrew Webster ?


CHAPTER XIV
THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH
When Glory Adair left Castle Sunset, she had by no
means left the Winright case behind her. The message
Burnville received just before her departure had jolted
her. But not violently: if Burnville had found the man,
she told herself, Burnville himself was due to be jolted.
He was not the sort of man Burnville was looking for.
Her palmistry told her that; and her palmistry could not
lie.
These many days she herself had been busy on a single
line of determined enquiry.
She was tracking an individual Burnville had appar-
ently overlooked—the young man Ross had seen leaving
Castle Sunset the night of the supposed murder. Only
the chauffeur had seen that man. Only the chauffeur
had testified to his existence. The chauffeur might have
imagined him; might even have invented him. If so,
Nick Ross himself might be worth investigating.
Just now, however, Glory felt decidedly weary of the
puzzle. She realized the need of relaxation. So she
went straight to the Maitland Port hospital, where she
fraternized with the nurses and picked up some technical
detail regarding several interesting cases. One especially
interesting patient was expected to cash in at any moment.
Glory was placidly waiting for him to do so when the
storm broke.
The storm cleared the air, and the patient rallied.
"He's actually better !" mused the disappointed watcher.
144


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 145
She sat beside the special in attendance, studying the
man's hand. “Good constitution, no bad habits and a
stubborn disposition-good combination, that. He will
recover. I'm simply wasting my time here." But she
had to wait till the storm was over.
By then it was well past midnight. Glory set out for
the Barracks, otherwise known as the Nurse's Registry,
on the opposite side of town. All along her way was
wreckage of the storm. She felt curious enough to take
a census of the damage. Darkness had no terrors for
her; wicked prowlers did not enter her scheme of life.
She was somewhat of a prowler herself, cautious, silent,
like a cat, and, like a cat, able to see in the dark.
Straying curiously up one street and down another,
peering at flattened fences and uprooted trees and dam-
aged street signs, she saw plenty of wreckage. She could
not remember such another storm; its thoroughness, its
sweeping, majestic power, delighted her.
She wished, now, she had been out in the storm.
Toward three o'clock Glory reached the Barracks. The
sleepy nurse who had answered Laura Winright's call
dozed over a book. She nodded to Glory, and went on
dozing.
“Clara,” said Glory, delightedly, “it was a superb
storm. You never saw anything like it.”
“Uh-huh !" returned Clara, and dozed on.
Glory turned in, and went to sleep.
The next thing she knew, Clara was shaking her back
into wakefulness.
"There's a message for you," she shrilled. "I forgot
all about it. Came at eleven o'clock. Wake up!"
"I am awake!" *
She was, and dressing.
"Miss Winright called at eleven. She asked for you.
She said to tell you—to tell you you were needed on a


CHAPTER XIV
THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH
When Glory Adair left Castle Sunset, she had by no
means left the Winright case behind her. The message
Burnville received just before her departure had jolted
her. But not violently: if Burnville had found the man,
she told herself, Burnville himself was due to be jolted.
He was not the sort of man Burnville was looking for.
Her palmistry told her that; and her palmistry could not
lie.
These many days she herself had been busy on a single
line of determined enquiry.
She was tracking an individual Burnville had appar-
ently overlooked—the young man Ross had seen leaving
Castle Sunset the night of the supposed murder. Only
the chauffeur had seen that man. Only the chauffeur
had testified to his existence. The chauffeur might have
imagined him; might even have invented him. If so,
Nick Ross himself might be worth investigating.
Just now, however, Glory felt decidedly weary of the
puzzle. She realized the need of relaxation. So she
went straight to the Maitland Port hospital, where she
fraternized with the nurses and picked up some technical
detail regarding several interesting cases. One especially
interesting patient was expected to cash in at any moment.
Glory was placidly waiting for him to do so when the
storm broke.
The storm cleared the air, and the patient rallied.
“He's actually better!" mused the disappointed watcher.
144


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 145
She sat beside the special in attendance, studying the
man's hand. “Good constitution, no bad habits and a
stubborn disposition-good combination, that. He will
recover. I'm simply wasting my time here.” But she
had to wait till the storm was over.
By then it was well past midnight. Glory set out for
the Barracks, otherwise known as the Nurse's Registry,
on the opposite side of town. All along her way was
wreckage of the storm. She felt curious enough to take
a census of the damage. Darkness had no terrors for
her; wicked prowlers did not enter her scheme of life.
She was somewhat of a prowler herself, cautious, silent,
like a cat, and, like a cat, able to see in the dark.
Straying curiously up one street and down another,
peering at flattened fences and uprooted trees and dam-
aged street signs, she saw plenty of wreckage. She could
not remember such another storm; its thoroughness, its
sweeping, majestic power, delighted her.
She wished, now, she had been out in the storm.
Toward three o'clock Glory reached the Barracks. The
sleepy nurse who had answered Laura Winright's call
dozed over a book. She nodded to Glory, and went on
dozing.
“Clara,” said Glory, delightedly, “it was a superb
storm. You never saw anything like it.”
“Uh-huh !" returned Clara, and dozed on.
Glory turned in, and went to sleep.
The next thing she knew, Clara was shaking her back
into wakefulness.
“There's a message for you," she shrilled. "I forgot
all about it. Came at eleven o'clock. Wake up!"
"I am awake!” *
She was, and dressing.
"Miss Winright called at eleven. She asked for you.
She said to tell you—to tell you you were needed on a


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 147
library opened or of the garage: i hours. Now they
In front of her glowed a distant, tiny, steady eye of
light, only a few feet above the floor.
The light, she found, came through the keyhole. Glory,
listening, heard a shuffling sound inside the Ghost Room.
Softly she tried the door. The man inside had evidently
locked it and removed the key.
Glory slipped her own key into the lock. She did not
turn it. She had accomplished her purpose; now the
man in grey could not unlock the door from the inside.
Then she went out upon the wide porch behind the
house that looked down on the harbour, and the lake.
The awesome depth, the gaping shadows on all sides,
made her shiver, steady-nerved though she was.
She found her revolver, and followed the porch to the
side of the house, where the French windows of the
library opened toward the garage. She glanced at the
upstairs windows of the garage. She had on other
nights seen those windows alight at all hours. Now they
were dark. Ross, too, was away! Of course—he had
taken Laura Winright out to Colborne.
Glory discovered, now, why the light from the Ghost
Room windows had not shown from the outside. The
prowler, whoever he was, had closed all the inside shut-
ters. Investigating more closely, however, Glory at last
found a crack.
She put her eye to this.
The shelves had been swept clean. Books were heaped
on the floor in great, irregular piles-books lying flat, on
end, sprawling open. In the blaze of light everything
showed clear. There came no sound save the quick flip-
ping of pages and the plump! as a book was tossed aside.
A dark figure leaned between her and the light. She
discerned a man. His clothes were grey. He wore a
grey felt hat, pulled far forward. She fancied a grey


148 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
beard, ragged and untrimmed. She watched intently,
hoping to glimpse his face. He sat now in profile.
Suddenly, Alinging away a book, he stooped for an-
other. His face turned toward her.
He was masked.
The nurse drew back. "He's alone,” she mused.
“He's hunting for something—he thinks it's hidden in
the books—and-he hasn't found it !"
And he was the man in grey-Andrew Webster.
“The whole outfit's a disguise," Glory whispered, chal-
lenging the empty night.
She stepped back to the porch. The game was check-
mate. The man in grey could not escape by the door;
she could not enter by the windows, which were fastened
on the inside. If she entered by the door, he could escape
by the windows.
She dare not go for help. He might get away while
she was gone.
Her only course was to wait.
Then she thought of the telephone. It was in the
hall, just outside the library door.
She picked up a shawl lying on a porch rocker, and
with it went to the telephone. She flung the shawl over
her head, covering both herself and the instrument: then
lifted the receiver. Quickly she called the town con-
stable, gave her message, dropped the receiver, and threw
aside the suffocating shawl.
"Flip! Flip! Flip! Plump! Flip! Flip!" Inside
the library went on the sound, uninterrupted, of leaves
turned and books cast aside. The shawl had safely
muffled the telephone message.
Glory returned to guard outside the French windows.
The door was safe. The constable should be there in
ten minutes. The nurse perched herself on the porch
rail. The job was done, quite neatly, too: she would


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 149
laugh at Burnville when he came back, empty-handed,
from Nile.
The silence was jarred to fragments by the cacopho-
nous jangle of the telephone.
Either the constable was stupidly calling for more in-
formation, or the man in grey had some confederate on
watch to telephone a warning.
Glory slipped to her feet, and fingered her revolver.
It was too late to reach the Ghost Room door and turn
the key, unnoticed. She heard the man in grey rise
softly, and steal across the room. He meant to answer
the telephone himself.
She heard his key clicking as he tried to insert it in
the lock. He kept on trying, manifestly puzzled to find
the keyhole blocked.
She waited.
Again the telephone rang.
The man inside must know, by now. Glory glanced
up and down the street. On the skyline was a hint of
dawn, but no one seemed stirring. She moved swiftly,
silently, toward her eye-hole in the shutters.
Simultaneously, shutters and windows flew open.
Glory lifted her revolver and fired, point-blank. The
man grappled her. They stumbled against the rail, and
fell, wrestling in desperate silence.
She had no time to think. She clung gamely, seeking
to hold him, he striving to free himself.
“Ross !" she cried. “Ross !”
But no Ross came.
The man's fingers tightened on her throat. He made
never a sound. That struck her as odd or was he chok-
ing her into unconsciousness. She tried to cry out, and
could not. Still she held on. She would not, would
not, would not let him go, she told herself.
The man's grip relaxed. She felt herself flung against


150
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
the rail, her tense grasp wrenched loose. Then Burnville
leaned over her.
"No," she told him, harshly, “I don't need help.” She
sat up, and listened. “He's running that way. Get him!
Get him, I tell you !"
He plunged away in pursuit. Glory, still dazed, sought
and presently found her revolver in the grass. She went
staggering determinedly across the lawn after Burnville.
She heard someone struggling through the under-
growth that clothed the cliff-face. Then she came on
Burnville.
“He went down there,” gasped the detective. Then:
“That message was all a blind, to get me away. Where
is Miss Winright? How did you get here?”
"Don't ask questions. Hurry!” She plunged into a
narrow foot-path, the pungently scented cedar branches
whipping her face.
"Careful,” warned Burnville. "You'll slip."
“Not I.”
They emerged on a narrow ledge, foot of one slope
and crest of another. Glory turned, with shining eyes.
“There," she cried. "Those foot-prints were made
since the storm."
The faint light of dawn showed the sandy soil torn
and rutted.
She followed the foot-prints to the edge of the terrace,
and downward into the cedars that clothed the slope.
She found another path, and into this she swung, cling-
ing to branches, stumbling, slipping, falling, but ever
watching in the semi-darkness for the rutted marks of
the grey man's descent.
They came at last to another little clearing on the face
of the hill. Glory, a few yards ahead, turned a puzzled
look on Burnville. A wisp of hair blew loose about her
forehead, and her fair face was scratched by the branches.


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 151
“What is it?” he asked.
“The trail is lost.”
“Lost? How?”
"Vanished into the earth.” The nurse smiled queerly.
"See! Here the foot-prints halt-break off! If I were
skilled at woodcraft, I might follow broken twigs,
but-
In the very middle of the little clearing, the trail inex-
plicably ended. They closely examined the clearing on
all four sides. Though from the upper side the foot-,
prints entered, nowhere did they leave.
"Where did that man go?' demanded Glory. “That
is, if he is a man?”
"Did he take to the trees?”
Burnville glanced about. Glory examined the ground
more intently.
“He sat down here. That means—come !"
She plunged into another path, but more cautiously,
with searching glances to right and left. Perhaps ten
yards of sinuous path they followed through dense cedars.
Then, abruptly, she halted.
“There!” she exclaimed. “There is our quarry!"
"That brush pile!”
“Certainly."
Burnville commenced to pull aside the dead branches.
Above, the morning light was widening. For the first
time both man and woman sensed the oddity of their
position. Glory daintily examined her revolver; then,
impatient of Burnville's slowness, fell to work on the
brush herself.
She uttered a cry.
“See !"
A grey coat-sleeve showed beneath the dead branches.
An instant later Burnville dazedly drew forth a shabby


152 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
grey suit. Beneath it he found a battered, soft felt hat
and a pair of muddy shoes.
“Yes, he wore these," she said, answering Burnville's
questioning look. “And—he tried to get away with this.”
She drew an envelope from the bosom of her waist.
Burnville clutched it eagerly.
"Last Will and Testament of Adam Winright," he
read; and tore it open.
The envelope was empty. .
In the Ghost Room, Glory patiently put things to
rights. Judith MacTurk, coming early, as she inter-
preted early, shrank in horror from the scene of devas-
tation.
"Which Judith MacTurk's ain pigs, if Judith Mac-
Turk kept pigs—which Judith MacTurk doesna,
wouldna live in sic a room, nae, not if she begged them
on her bended knees.” Still breathing anathema, she
bustled away to make coffee.
“He did not get the will," insisted Burnville.
“No?"
"No. He was still searching when he found himself
trapped.”
“There is no will,” suggested the nurse. “This is the
envelope, and it is empty.”
"Anyway," rejoined Burnville, “Tom has given Airth
& Kinzie instructions to secure letters of administration
to the estate. If a will turns up, well and good.”
They were interrupted by a telephone call from Laura
Winright.
“Another wild-goose chase," retailed the detective.
"Nick Ross and the car are both demolished.”
“Nick Ross?" Glory's uplifted brows asked a ques-
tion.
Burnville shrugged his shoulders.


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 153
“You're not taking me into your confidence," said the
nurse.
"Are you disclosing your secrets to me?”
"I have done it—but I won't do it again.” Glory hefted
a book carefully; then, with a smile, replaced it on the
shelves.
Burnville glanced at the title.
“Good Heavens! Think of that in a modern business
man's library. Thucydides, in the original Greek. I
didn't know Adam Winright was a scholar."
“Nor I.” Glory, with the same dry smile, turned to
the next volume. “The man in grey was very thorough.
I can tell you that much. Of the books he had time to
look at, he went through every one. I suppose he fan-
cied the will might be hidden between the pages. Now,
I could have told him that Mr. Winright was more
methodical than that.”
"Palmistry!" scoffed Burnville.
"As good a guide”-imperturbable Glory~"as the Nile
constable and the drag-net-and the rural telephone.”
She sipped her coffee. “Mrs. MacTurk makes very good
coffee. There's only one person makes better. Her
name's Glory Adair. She's a graduate nurse, and will
live and die an old maid, because she's too wise to become
the tail to any man's kite. But Mr. Burnville”-again
she smiled—“I'll bet you a box of chocolates to a box
of cigars that palmistry does beat you.”
"Done!" Burnville laughed. “Now, what will you
bet that Andrew Webster beats us both ?”
“You have an advantage," mourned Glory Adair.
"I'll likely have to stay here and nurse Nick Ross."
Burnville, when Ross was brought in suffering from
a sprained ankle and a twisted back and bruises innumer-
able, closely questioned the chauffeur.


154 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
The chauffeur answered, suffered, yet never ceased to
smile.
Then Burnville resumed his drag-netting of town and
harbour. Nobody at the harbour or in the town, how-
ever, had seen any suspicious character that morning,
either lurking below the hill or boarding the morning
train.
For two successive days the search was fruitless.
The third day, in the morning, Katie brought from
the post-office a letter addressed in a scrawly hand:
Mister Tom Winright,
Maitland Port.
Laura fingered the missive apprehensively.
She made out a Buffalo post-mark. That in itself
was not significant. She knew no one in Buffalo; but
Tom might have business friends there. It was the
scrawly handwriting, wavering and irregular, that
gripped her attention.
Tom had told her to open any message that came to
Castle Sunset for him. Ordinarily she would have for-
warded the letter to Tom at Detroit, but when he last
wrote Tom was still in New York, his business there
unfinished. Still, he would surely be in Detroit again
within a few days. The girl disliked to pry into even
her brother's affairs.
She commenced to re-address the letter, as she had
done two others. As she did so, in the lower, left-hand
corner of the envelope she noticed a straggly word:
"Immediett.”
Still she hesitated.
While she hesitated, the door bell rang. Glory a mo-
ment later found Laura Winright still engrossed in the
letter.


THE INTERRUPTED SEARCH 155
"It's Mr. Burnville again,” announced the nurse. And
then: "What are you staring at?"
"Glory, I mean to show this to Mr. Burnville.”
Burnville, shown the letter, whipped open his port-
folio and studiously compared the handwriting on the
envelope with that of the Andrew Webster letters.
"There's not the slightest doubt, Miss Winright. I'd
advise you to open that letter at once.”
Laura did so.
As in the earlier letters to Adam Winright, there was
no superscription: merely the date, two days before.
"Just this line, Tom Winright, to say good-bye. I'm
safe beyond your reach and that of your hired dettectives.
I got what I was after and you won't see me again.
Andrew Webster."
"Detectives !” exclaimed Glory, peering over Laura's
shoulder. She handed Burnville the envelope.
“O-ho! Buffalo post-mark. That's some clue, at
last. Miss Winright”-his quick, nervous tones be-
trayed unusual excitement-"take it from me, we've got
him cornered. I've just time to catch the train.”
"Where are you going?” demanded Laura.
"If this man is in Buffalo now, he arrived there within
two days," briskly returned Burnville. "Someone must
have seen him. I'm going straight to Buffalo."


CHAPTER XV
THE BOOK OF THE PAST
Glory Adair condescended to accompany the detective
to the station at the foot of the hill.
"I'll call a taxi,” suggested Mr. Burnville.
"By no means,” rejoined the nurse. “The short walk
will invigorate us both. Isn't the lake superbly smooth,
now that the fog has lifted? I like this old town. Don't
you, Mr. Burnville?”
Glory Adair was charming in white. It set off her
dark hair and dark eyes, and matched the pallor of her
face. Only now her eyes were mockingly bright, her
smile tantalizingly insolent, as though she made secret
fun of Burnville's sturdily determined search.
“Am I correct, Miss Adair, in still counting you a
rival?”
"If you have not abandoned the field to me?"
He breathed deep. There was a spice of enjoyable
novelty in this situation. His battles heretofore had all
been with criminals; the interposition of this sweet-faced
palmist with her air of saucy serenity added zest to the
chase.
She ventured a question.
“May I ask if you have established the identity of that
young man? The young man Nick Ross saw leaving
Castle Sunset the night Mr. Winright died ?"
“You may."
"And the answer, please?”
"I'll give it when you tell me what you found in the
library that first day, just before I came.”
156


THE BOOK OF THE PAST
157
“That's a bargain.”
“Very well. What did you find ?”.
"I found there were no signs of a disturbance, or of
violence. The envelope that had contained the telegram
had been folded and thrown into the fire-place by Mr.
Winright "
“Why by Mr. Winright?"
"Because it was folded carefully, as the unbroken ashes
showed. The other man would have crumpled it. His
hand-print tells me that.”
"And what else did you find ?”
“Nothing. You came just then. Now, as to the young
man ?”
Burnville smiled.
"I have definite clues as to his identity.”
"Oh?”
"Which I am not prepared to disclose to competitors."
"There was such a young man?”
Burnville shrugged his shoulders.
"You are not playing fair, Mr. Burnville. You do
not tell me everything, as I told you."
“We must each keep our secrets, Miss Adair," philoso-
phized the detective. “Anyway, here's my train. Don't
forget that challenge.”
“Palmistry versus the practical detective.” Glory's
eyes danced. She felt not the least crestfallen that
Burnville had outmatched her.
Returning to Castle Sunset, she went straight to the
Ghost Room.
"Miss Winright,” she said, "we have gone through
all those books and we have not found the will. Neither
Mr. Burnville, nor you, nor I. And the man in grey has
not found it
“His letter says "


158 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Can you repeat the exact wording of that letter ?”
Laura Winright knitted her brows.
“Just this line, Tom Winright, to say good-bye. I'm
safe beyond your reach and that of your hired dettectives.
I got what I was after and you won't see me again."
She paused.
“Did you notice one significant word?”,
“What word?”
"Dettectives—spelt with two t's."
Laura stared.
"It is significant, you mean, because it's misspelled ?”
"Perhaps—but chiefly because originally only four
persons in Maitland Port knew that Harry Burnville
came here as a detective.”
Laura started. Glory Adair, Tom Winright, Harry
Burnville—they were always seeing things she could
not see. And they were the three others who from the
first had known Burnville's true status.
“There is a fifth, evidently—the man in grey?"
“And the inference ?"
"One of these four persons disclosed the truth; or the
servants overheard us; or- "
"Or Andrew Webster himself was listening?”
Laura cast a whitening look of apprehension at the
heavy curtains. The quizzical brown eyes showed ela-
tion; such elation as Glory Adair, a little girl, might have
felt in presenting to a playmate a complicated puzzle she
had solved herself.
Then she pondered, rocking.
What she meant to say came hard, even to her. Yet
Laura Winright, for her own sake, must be prepared
for things still harder. She deliberated, till Laura's
wondering look grew compellingly intent.
"Laura ?”
“Yes?” Laura leaned close.


THE BOOK OF THE PAST 159
· The telephone intervened. Glory placidly answered it.
"No. I can't do anything. My dear Miss Sifton, it's
'mout of my line entirely. . . . I'm exceedingly sorry-he
es, was such a nice old dog, too—I like dogs. . . . But I'd be
totally out of place-really, I think a veterinary. ..."
A moment's silence.
“Yes.”
Silence again.
“I really think it would be nicer-probably a little
strychnine-oh, I have strychnine handy but—now, really,
" I'd rather you'd get Jack to do it...."
[ Laura Winright listened impatiently to the protracted
? argument. Miss Adair at last managed to break away.
i “Old Rover Sifton is dying. Poor Fanny offered me
anything under the sun if I'd only cure him. She offered
li me fifty dollars a week to nurse him for her. Laura Win-
right, is there a human would offer me that much for
nursing another human! The disease is incurable. I
told her so. It's old age. She gave me every symptom
-and-and then she wanted me to come over and give
him something to put him out of his misery.”
Her smile faded.
“You were going to say- ?” insisted Laura.
"Oh, yes. I was going to say-Laura, why didn't
| you tell me that your father and mother were-divorced?”
A moment Laura sat in stunned silence: then anger
surged through her.
“Why? Because they were not !" Her blue eyes filled.
Glory had thought she sensed how Laura Winright
would feel; a glance at the girl's face, troubled, pain-
drawn, gave her a new idea of the heights of Laura's
passionate idealism. Divorce had no place in her scheme
of things. She saw in her long-dead mother a loving
wife: in her austere father a loyal husband. “Are there


160 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
still girls like that?" mused the nurse; and stayed in-
credulous, unwilling to believe her eyes.
She had seen much of the sordid, sorrowing, selfish
side of life. Yet quickly enough she realized that Laura's
attitude toward the mere suggestion of divorce was a
logical outcome of her training under a stiff old Scots-
woman, and her quiet, contemplative life.
“There, there, I'm sorry, dear,” she soothed. "For-
give me, won't you?”
Laura checked her sobs.
“You are so sudden, Glory. I never know what you
are going to say. I don't know much of my mother,"
she went on, soberly, "and all I know, I've told you.”
Again tears blurred her vision.
“My mother-my mother was a good woman!".
“I know, dear. I'm not blaming your mother."
Laura stiffened, angrily.
“Then-then-it's dad "
“Stop and think, Laura.” The nurse, for all her
zephyry voice, was taking her patient firmly in hand.
“What did those letters say—the letters Mr. Burnville
found? The past, wasn't it? Isn't there a chance that
in trying to find out what happened that night and why
it happened, you might learn things that would hurt?”
Laura's face clouded. Yet her lips formed a thin
line.
"Glory. I-I must find out.” Glory heard the reso-
lute intaking of the girl's breath.
"Did you ever see your mother's picture?”
Laura stared in affright.
“I know the answer, dear.” The nurse was all tender-
ness now. “You needn't tell me."
“But who—who told you?”
“Your father's hand, dear-and your father's hand
can't lie.”


THE BOOK OF THE PAST 161
"You may have read it wrong?"
"Oh, I may.” She sighed resignedly. Apparently
there was no convincing this pertinacious, blue-eyed ideal-
ist of the truth of palmistry. “When we raked over
these books,”—she crossed to the shelves—"you found
nothing and Mr. Burnville found nothing, but I found
a very interesting old volume that seems worth looking
into."
Laura rose.
“I suppose you'll read all afternoon."
“Sit down. I may want to read this aloud."
She returned to her rocker with a thick quarto bound
in black morocco. Laura glanced curiously at the title.
“Greek!”
"Thucydides,” explained the nurse, "a famous Greek
historian who was also an indifferent general. This was
printed”-she turned to the title page at Leipzig in
1785. Very good.” She placidly turned a few sheets.
“Notice the substantial binding. This paper is yellow
with age. Heft the book, will you?”
Laura did so.
“Why?”
“Shake it."
"It's hollow!"
“A good book converted into a clever dummy. If I
had come a half hour later that morning, the man in grey
would have found it. If I hadn't found it immediately
I returned from the chase, you or Mr. Burnville would
have beaten me to it. Mr. Burnville won't find it, now,
He keeps his secrets. Oh, well, I keep mine."
Opening the book, she fingered over a score of pages,
pressed a spring in the back. A cover flew up.
“Maitland Port always pronounced Adam Winright a
queer old stick. Just like him to turn a Greek book that


162 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
nobody would take from the shelves into a hiding place
for-old letters !”
The big book, outwardly just like any other book only
ten times more uninteresting, was a jewel case within,
but crowded with yellow, faded letters, a few old photo-
graphs, a packet tied with faded ribbon. Glory handed
the packet to Laura Winright. The girl, fingering it
gingerly, almost instantly returned it unexamined. Miss
Adair for her part searched each item very methodically.
The loose letters were singularly old and yellow letters,
plainly enough, from parents in the country to a young
man in a big city.
“I have found nothing of date, since your father's mar-
riage, approximately speaking," commented the nurse.
She pursued her search. "No envelopes! That's too
bad. But this letter begins, 'Dear Harry.'”
“Uncle Harold Winright, I daresay.” To Laura, her
father's elder brother had never been more than a hazy
phantom.
“Was he ever married ?”
"No. I asked Dad once, and he said Harold died a
young man.”
"Was there any hard feeling between him and your
father?":
“None.” Laura hesitated. “That is,” she qualified,
"Dad never told me of any."
The nurse laid aside the loose letters. “There is noth-
ing to help us in these.”
Beneath them were old photographs, including a few
daguerreotypes. Laura, on tip-toe now, gazed expect-
antly over her friend's shoulder.
"That must be father when he was young. There is
an enlargement of that in the living room. You've seen
it, Glory? Yes, that's Father."
Glory requisitioned her microscope. “Oh, these pro-


THE BOOK OF THE PAST 163
fessional photographers !” she exclaimed. “They show
just the back of the hand when”—her tone grew biting-
"the palm might tell so much."
The next two photographs were of young men, evi-
dently chums of Adam Winright. Miss Adair reached
for the last. It was wrapped in tissue paper bound with
a blue ribbon. With her handkerchief the nurse brushed
away a faint film of dust; then, unwrapping the picture,
turned it toward the light.
Laura, with a sharp cry, pressed her hands over her
eyes.
“What's the matter, dear?”.
“Oh, nothing !" the girl protested.
From the photograph gazed at them a girlish face, face
of a young woman whose dark hair and piercing eyes
hinted at southern blood. Even into the photograph the
artist seemed to have injected a touch of charm; there
was a quaint fascination in the alluring eyes and pout-
ing lips..
“Isn't she pretty?” Laura was herself again.
"Did you ever see her?”
"No."
“Did your father ever tell you who she was?"
“N-no. I never knew the least thing about her till
you found this photograph.”
"Then she is not your mother?”
Laura made no answer. Through her microscope,
Glory studied every detail of the picture. “Here," she
remarked, "are initials—'L. M.'” She laid the photo-
graph aside.
Laura Winright proffered the packet of letters.
"You didn't even untie them !"
"No. 1-1- "
“This ribbon has been untied quite recently.” Glory


164 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
thoughtfully pulled out the bow-knot. Within the packet
something glistened jetty-black.
"Hair!” exclaimed Laura.
"A woman's hair." Glory's tone was reverent. “From
the girl of the picture."
With unwonted emotion she laid the little wisps of hair
beside the faded ribbon. She turned to the letters.
“A woman's writing. Love letters?” The writing
was faint, and here and there illegible. The letters bore
date nearly thirty years before. Laura, having read a
few lines, drew back.
“Have we a right to read them, Glory?”
Glory studied the faded paper. “Dear Boy” was the
only superscription. She turned the page. “Lucile,"
she murmured. "Just Lucile. A young girl with a for-
eign name. This is the girl of the picture-L. M.? And
Lucile was your mother's name?”
Laura's lips twitched.
"I—I never knew.” She tried hard to face the ques-
tion. “But she could hardly be dark for—for father
was rather dark, and I- " .
She bent her golden head.
"Your mother should, logically, have been fair," rea-
soned the nurse. “So you don't want to read the letters?
Well, they're none of my personal concern."
Gathering the letters together, she reached forth her
hand for the faded ribbon. She seemed for the nonce
a mere automaton, without feeling, without even a
woman's most natural curiosity to delve into the most
enchanting of all subjects, another woman's past. Laura
smiled.
“That's right,” she approved. “We won't read them."
She had come to a chasm from whose brink she shrank.
Glory took up the ribbon.


THE BOOK OF THE PAST 165
Laura's face changed. She laid a faltering hand on
the nurse's arm.
“Glory!"
“Yes.” The brown-eyed girl laid the wisps of black
hair amid the letters, and commenced to tie the ribbon.
“We must read them. I don't want to, but—but for
Dad's sake-
She halted, irresolute. Was it indeed for her father's
sake that all this past must be laid bare? Then, relent-
lessly, the old determination gripped her. She was essen-
tially a woman, with the woman's intentness on the one
preconceived idea.
"I mean to find the man who was with Dad that night,"
she cried, in an outburst of self-justification. As, weak,
faltering, she had nevertheless struggled even to the
horror of gazing with questioning eyes on the lines of her
father's dead hand, so now, weak, faltering, she stood
determined to probe this matter to its blackest depths.
"I intend to find that man.”
Glory laid aside the ribbon.
The letters were many and, as time wore on, hecame
more voluminous and more endearing. Chance refer-
ences hinted of the New York of thirty years before.
Yet after a lapse of years even the clearest allusions were
uncertain.
“What a pity we haven't the envelopes !” exclaimed the
nurse. “Boy-Garcon-Petit Ami- "
The letters covered some fourteen months; then
abruptly ceased.
"What does that mean?” wondered Laura.
"A parting—or a marriage. From the tone of the
letters I should say a marriage. See,” added Glory,
glancing inside the wrapper, "here is one more letter.
If we had commenced with this, we might not have needed
to even glance at the others.”


166 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
The letter, dated two years later than the last they had
just read, was in the same hand-writing. But the writ-
ing was no longer faint; firm, rather, and clear, as though
the heat of some fierce feeling had burned each character
into the page. Glory silently held it outspread. Laura
stared without comprehension.
“Read it," she at last faltered. "I—I don't want to."
Glory read, in a low voice. Compared with the others,
this letter was singularly curt and direct.
"Sir,” it began, “Mr. Villard tells me that you have
won your suit, and that in the sight of the law I am no
longer your wife. I shall always be your wife in the
sight of God—that you know. Mr. Villard tells me that
my boy has been left to me, that I shall have charge of
his upbringing. Rest assured, I shall teach him to carry
out one sacred purpose, to which he will devote his life-
the infliction of justice on his father and my husband.
"Justice, slow of foot, will take years to reach you;
but by his hand it will be sure to seek you out and strike
you down. No wealth you can win will ensure you peace,
no doors can bar out the avenger, always you must be
haunted by the thought of what is to come-punishment,
inevitable, by the means you know, from your own flesh
and blood.”
The letter was signed, simply: "Lucile."'.
“And the date,” remarked Miss Adair, sententiously,
“'is—let me see-1887—just twenty-eight years ago. Did
your hand—and your father's—tell me the truth? How
old are you, Laura Winright?”
Many moments passed before Laura, sobbing incoher-
ently, could falter forth the answer:
"I—I am just twenty.”


170 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"No," commanded Glory. "Sit down. You can't do
any good. If my calculations are correct, I'll be dead
in exactly five minutes.” Again she glanced at her wrist
watch.
"I'll call Doctor Chalmers."
"No. You'll sit and listen to me. I haven't time to
fool with doctors. Chalmers can't help now. . . . Laura
Winright, that's how your father died. The burr was
enclosed in that telegram. It was put there by the man
who signed for the telegram in the morning. To kill in
ten minutes, the poison must spread through the system
almost instantaneously. I could cauterize that scratch
myself. It wouldn't help in the least, and I'd have a
burned finger for you to look at when I lie in my coffin.”
Laura Winright shuddered.
“Your father," pursued the nurse, "opened that tele-
gram, never dreaming. As he opened it, the burr caught
between his fingers. That explains the faint scratches
you saw there. They killed him.”
Again Miss Adair glanced at her watch. Now she
was faintly puzzled.
“There's nineteen of those burrs," she said. “This
one on the telegram makes twenty. And the one that
killed your father- "
“Twenty-one?”
Laura Winright, hunched in the arm chair, with frozen
horror watched the nurse's serene face.
"It's a funny world, isn't it, Laura ?” Her tone was
philosophical. “A rum old world. It's always the un-
expected that happens. I rummage for your father's
will, and I find-oh, an excuse for making mine." She
laughed. "Now, listen— "
“Oh, don't, don't talk like that!"
"If I don't outlive the time-limit, you must find this


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
171
woman, Lucile. You can trace her through the lawyer,
Villard. That's all, I think.”
Rising, she paced nervously up and down.
"That poison,” she exclaimed at last, "it isn't work-
ing."
She seemed disappointed, angry even, at this hitch
in her calculations. Dubiously she eyed the wrist watch.
Had she mistaken the time?
“There can't be any question. . . . Am I wrong about
this thing? Entirely wrong?”.
"Glory!"
Hope sprang into Laura's eyes.
"It's past ten minutes.” Yes, the nurse was disap-
pointed. "If I were right, I have no business to be alive.
I've made a fool of myself—that's all. ... And yet, those
spines fit the telegram. There's no doubt of it. There
can't be.” She stared at the papers on the table. "If I'd
only known, that day Mr. Burnville came "
“Glory!"
“Quit hugging me, will you?" The nurse was deep
in her puzzling problem. She was not concerned at all
at her escape from the death she had fancied certain.
She eyed the heap of burrs. "I could try them all but
that would take me nearly three hours. I haven't time
for that."
She still was haunted by the ten-minute time-limit.
Then she laughed, happily
"Kiss me, Laura. I'm not dead yet. I'm not going
to die. ... Again. ... There, now, let up on the kissing."
She sat herself down once more to the intricate prob-
lem of the burrs.
"It could not be suicide. Your father would not com-
mit suicide. His hand tells me that. ... Then, if he had
killed himself, what business have those marks on the


THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
173
On the table top she dumped from the flat poker tip
a little pile of ashes and in their midst the twenty-first
burr.
“I knew it must be there!" she triumphed.
Again the puzzled look crept into her eyes. “One can't
be too sure. It is one thing to believe and another to
positively know.”
She eyed the burr. Thoughtfully she dabbed her finger
again with peroxide.
"It might pass off with a slight sensation, if I use the
peroxide first,” she commented, coolly.
Laura restrained her.
"Glory! You'll kill yourself.”
"But how am I to know for certain that it is poisoned ?
The entire case turns on that. If I assume that it's
poisoned, I may be pursuing a delusion. If I know that
it's poisoned, I'm on the trail of facts.” She went on
dabbing.
"Don't!" pleaded Laura.
The nurse laid down the phial.
"How am I to know ?" she insisted, almost crossly.
“A cat? Or a rabbit?''
Glory started up.
“I have it !"
She went tripping to the telephone. Laura heard her
gay voice filter through the doorway.
"Is that you, Miss Sifton? I've been thinking over
what you asked me. Poor old Rover! He's better,
surely? ... No? Now, that's too bad! Can you
bring him over? I'll do one thing or the other-and I'll
know at a glance."
She returned to Laura. “We'll know in a few min-
utes.” She was unexcited. “Let's go out on the lake
porch, where no one will see us.”
She brushed the twenty burrs into the dummy Thucy-


174 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
dides, replaced the packet of yellow letters, the loose
papers and the photographs, snapped shut the catch, put
the book back on the shelf.
“It looks like every book," she commented, “but im-
mensely more uninteresting.”
The twenty-first burr, now, was safe in the locket she
wore. She busied herself a moment with her little port-
folio, and shook some white powder into a paper, which
she folded. Then she pulled on a pair of kid gloves.
After which she found a cosy rocker on the lake porch,
and a magazine.
Laura's blue eyes were deeply troubled.
"It frightens me, Glory. Oh, it frightens me. I don't
know why, but—it's all so strange, so terrible !"
“Terrible? A divorce? Why, you little innocent,
everybody's doing it, nowadays. Then it gives us the
motive-a vendetta. And a suspect—the son."
"His own son?” Her eyes widened. “Tom?"
"Of course not. Tom is just twenty-four. This let-
ter was written twenty-eight years ago.”
Laura sat in silence, crushed by the awesome sudden-
ness of it all, too bewildered to comprehend it more than
half, seeing as through shadows a dark-faced man meet-
ing her father in the Ghost Room at nights, threatening
him, and, at last, striking at him in this cruel, treacherous,
unthinkable way.
"His own son ?" she at last repeated.
So she still sat, staring into her own visioned thoughts,
when Fanny Sifton came. Her chauffeur followed, half-
dragging, half-carrying the aged setter, whose wheezy
gasps were discernible before they rounded the turn in
the porch. Laura was too shaken to greet Miss Sifton
composedly; she only half heard the nurse's purrings of
sympathy.


CHAPTER XVII
THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY, X
Laura Winright's exceedingly tender conscience trou-
bled her. Was she playing fair with Burnville ? Burn-
ville was working in her interest—did she not owe it to
him to at once disclose what she had learned? Was she,
in disregarding Burnville, playing fair with herself?
She protested to Glory.
"I can't leave Mr. Burnville to work in the dark!"
Glory's answer came like the snap of a whip.
“Let him find his own way to the light. We are com-
petitors, Harry Burnville and I. We made our bargain.
He has the advantage. He has practical experience; I
have only theory. He has every agency the law can
muster; I have only the wits of one poor Maitland Port
nurse. He's keen and sharp and clever and he works like
a dozen devils. In a race with him, every minute counts.”
She referred to a railroad time-table.
"Pack your kit, dear," she added. “We march imme-
diately."
Detroit was her destination. She was on the trail
of Lawyer Villard. "It's our one chance," she told
Laura. “You say, find this son. In a continent of a
hundred millions, you're willing to search for a young
man who, twenty-eight years ago, was possibly in New
York, and whose name you don't know. Life is too short,
dear. The mother's name we don't know ; Lucile, per-
haps Lucile Winright-who can tell? There just re-
177


178
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
mains the lawyer. Plaintiffs and defendants may come
and go, but the lawyer stays and takes toll of both."
Study of recent law lists in the little town didn't help
her. There was no Villard in the county lists, or, for
that matter, in the Michigan lists of recent years. To
Detroit therefore she went, hurrying Laura along with
her.
"Never mind Nick Ross,” she said. "He's recover-
ing nicely."
"But-
Laura stifled her objection this time. It concerned, not
Nick Ross, but George Annisford. At the Winright
stores, where they were sure to visit, she must meet him
again, for the first time since she sent him away.
Throughout the railroad journey to Detroit, through-
out the taxi ride to the stores, she felt a growing dread
of the imminent encounter. She was actually trembling
when she stepped from the elevator into the main offices
on the fourth floor.
She hurried to Tom's den.
"He's out !” she exclaimed; then shivered at the sound,
behind her, of a well-remembered footstep.
“Hello, Laura, girl!"
“George !" she breathed.
Oddly, she could think of nothing save rain and dark-
ness, and Nick Ross, the chauffeur-just a chauffeur-
pressing his lips to hers.
“George!" Her whisper held an appeal.
"By thunder, she knew me! Listen to that, Miss
Adair. She recognized me." Gayly he chucked Laura
under the chin. "Eh, chick? Come right in, girls. Tom,
is it?” in response to Laura's question. "Oh, rot! I
thought you were calling on me. So I'm not enough
attraction to tug you away from your Huron sunsets,
youngster?-it takes Big Brother to do that? Well, just


182 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
One entry specified “New York.” Glory made careful
note of all.
"Notice," she said, "your father, a rising business man,
partner in a profitable concern, spends practically all his
money this way. He draws only a few dollars for him-
self.”
“There are no more entries re—re Meloche ?”
“None," sighed Glory. “But-oh, see here
"
1890
Jun. 11
To cash paid you re X,
$20.00
These payments ran along, monthly or oftener, increas-
ing in amount from twenty to thirty and even forty dol-
lars—all re X.
“Who is X?" demanded Glory.
“X”-Laura hesitated—“X is an unknown quantity.”
“But human nature is a strange yet positive quantity.
Your father's nature compelled him to keep exact record
of expenditures and their purpose. Something else com-
pelled him to disguise these entries so that he alone could
understand their true significance. Hence, re X."
Laura thought of her ghostly pursuit of the man in
grey, of the clothes found in the cache amid the cedars,
of the slinking figure that so many had seen or fancied
about the grounds of Castle Sunset, of the mysterious
visitant at nights when her father had gone alone to his
library. Yes, and of those menacing letters in her father's
desk.
"It was blackmail?" she whispered.
Glory meditated.
"Anyone but Colonel Annisford would have been curi-
ous about such an entry. But the old Colonel, I dare-
say, was like George.”. She sighed. “He hated book-
keeping and office work. Adam Winright, who loved


THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY, X 183
such things, was a godsend. ... Ah! Paid Mrs. Win-
right-
“That,” said Laura, "was my mother. Not the woman
divorced.” She gazed at Glory in triumph. “That was
the fair-haired woman, my mother ... Mary Winright.
Yes, I do remember. Father did say her name was Mary.”
Glory shrugged her shoulders.
The entries re X continued, side by side with the house-
hold allowances to the merchant's wife. Within less
than a year the latter abruptly terminated. For two
weeks there were entries in a strange hand.
"On what did your mother live then?” questioned
Glory. “Love?"
Laura shivered. There was bewilderment in all this,
with a hint of menace. Glory, turning the page, pointed
to the last of the entries in the same strange hand:
"To paid funeral
$200.00"
“That,” she commented, "was—let me see-1892.
Twenty-three years ago. How old is Tom?"
"Nearly twenty-three.”
"And you—you are twenty?” She mused. “Is that
the funeral of the sister I found in your hand ?”
She traced the entries, day after day, week after week,
month after month. Still there ran through them that
same mysterious thread of payments “re X.” Yet there
never recurred any payment to Mrs. Winright.
"I can't understand it,” muttered Laura. “Unless my
mother had money of her own—a private account-or
her accounts were charged separately-or- ”.
The accounts went on and on, till less than twenty
years before. At that time came another significant
entry:


184 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
1895.
Aug 2 To check for Maitland Port property_$4,500.00
“Castle Sunset!" exclaimed Laura.
Then followed remittances to Angus MacTurk; and
paralleling them still, that haunting, sinuous trail of pay-
ments “re X.”
Glory came to the last pages of the last book.
"Here,” she exclaimed, “Re X, $8,000. That's a
jump, from the purchase of X in small instalments. Evi-
dently a final settlement, Laura, dear? There's not a
trace more of X-is there?” She ran her finger care-
fully through the concluding entries. “Done!
slam! "
She shut the last of the red-bound account books.
"It was then,” she added, "the business was converted
into a joint-stock company. Thereafter your father kept
his private accounts in the books we have already seen at
Castle Sunset-and X, whoever he or she was or what-
ever it was, doesn't appear there, my dear.”
Laura's puzzled musings were interrupted by a gentle
cough.
“Tom!"
He stood in the office doorway. Glory smiled, pleas-
antly.
"I was just waiting for you to speak, Mr. Winright.”
Laura interposed, with an impulsive hug and a kiss.
Tom's dignified gaze sought the pile of dusty books.
"What is this?"
Again Glory smiled.
“To settle a wager, Mr. Winright-if you like?"
Tom stayed unruffled by this evasion.
“May I make bold to doubt that, Miss Adair ?"
She shrugged her shoulders. He drew a step nearer,
his earnest eyes fixed on hers.


THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY, X 185
“Miss Adair, surely you know there's danger in stir-
ring up such ancient dust. It might poison the tiniest
scratch. If you wanted anything looked up, why not
ask one of the office girls— "
“And imperil her life?"
“The value of lives is relative." Tom's tone was
philosophic, his eyes were cold. “Laura's life—or yours,
Miss Adair "
The nurse laughed.
Laura caught Tom's arm. "Oh, tell me, Tom, where
can I find Mr. Burnville ?"
Tom searched his pockets, and found Mr. Burnville's
card. “That's his office. He's not there. Last I heard
he was in Buffalo. No, there's nothing doing.” Drily
he answered Laura's unspoken question.
Laura looked her disappointment.
“Sister mine," he added, dismally, "is this all a wild
goose chase?”
"Oh, Tom! After that man—those letters "
“Yes, yes,” he mused. “There is that man, of course.”
Yet he seemed to doubt. He looked at Laura again, his
manner palpably embarrassed. Laura felt surprise. It
was unusual for Tom to be troubled.
“Oh, Laura,” he exclaimed, “I nearly forgot to tell
you. Be sure to see Airth, the lawyer, while you're in
the city. He says he positively must see you about-
well, it's about the estate.”
Her eyes met his. In their steely depths Laura won-
deringly fancied a hint of compassionate pity.


CHAPTER XVIII
THE MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING
After a day spent in car-riding, calls on lawyers, long
distance telephoning, Glory Adair returned to Laura
Winright.
"You stay in Detroit," she commanded.
“Where are you going?”
"If I knew, dear, I'd tell you. When I get there,
wherever it is, I'll send word.”
With this evasion Laura Winright had to rest satis«
fied.
She spent three days in a fever of impatience. The
afternoon of the third day, a telegraph message was
handed her:
“No law to prevent you coming straight to Grimsby,
Canada.”
Only when she was speeding through darkness across
Canadian fields did Laura Winright recollect, that in
those three impatient days she had failed to see the lawyer,
Airth.
A very bewildered Laura Winright stepped down from
the morning train at Grimsby. The faint lake breeze in
her nostrils reminded her of Maitland Port, but, beneath
the rising summer sun, the low land lay hot. In the
background towered a grey height, tipped with a dis-
solving mist. A nondescript hackman at the other end
of the station platform waited indifferently for his fare
186


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 187
to come to him. Laura hesitated, uncertain which way
to turn.
Glory Adair came tripping briskly into the midst of her
perplexities.
Laura ran to her.
"Have you found him, Glory? Did he tell you any-
thing? Tell me all about it-right away!”
Glory smiled at her eagerness.
“Glory! Tell me !"
“First,” returned Glory, “we will walk-walk," she
emphasized for the dilatory hackman, now aroused, “just
a few blocks to an hotel. There we make a dash for a
brush. Cinders are pretty, but your yellow hair makes
them look mussy. Dust is good-we're all made of dust
-but it's wasted on a black background. Come, dear-
I'll brighten you up.”
She was relentless as the great rock of the Niagara
Escarpment towering in the background. Laura, fum-
ing impatiently, at the hotel resigned herself to brush-
ing.
“What an amazing lot of peach trees !" she grumbled.
"People here plant them in their front yards "
“Yes,” said Glory. “It's on account of those peach
trees that we're in Grimsby 'to-day. They lured a young
man named Villard "
Laura's brows lifted.
“A young man?"
“Precisely."
“But the lawyer ?”
"He died eighteen years ago. His son was also a law-
yer. He had poor health and lots of money. He put
the money into a peach farm for the sake of his health.
He manicures and massages his orchard to the queen's
taste, as they put it over here in Canada. I'll give you
fifty dollars per for all the weeds you find there. It's


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 189
Laura's mind took in “eight dollars for twenty thou-
sand acres of peaches”—and was not amazed! Only she
asked herself: “Did Mrs. James Villard ever meet Lucile
Meloche?”
“There's a pretty cottage!" she exclaimed, at last.
“Shall we go in ?".
It was a grey-stone cottage, standing far back amid
beds of brilliant flowers and a setting of green lawn.
Laura Winright fancied it an old grey cat dozing with
half-shut eyes on a bright-hued quilt.
A young man came sauntering down the walk. Invol-
untarily he tipped his hat; then flushed, noting the young
women were strangers.
"Mr. Harry Villard, I believe?” questioned Glory.
“At your service.” The dark eyes glowed. Mr.
Harry Villard studied Glory's proffered card; and then
he looked up and studied Glory, with a whimsical smile.
"Miss-Gloria-Adair," he repeated. “My mother is
expecting you, Miss Adair. Just come in, won't you?
Is this your first visit to Grimsby?" He accepted a hur-
ried introduction to Laura Winright; then, quite uncon-
cerned, went on chatting with Miss Gloria Adair. He left
them in the sitting room, and went to summon his mother.
Laura stared through the window at the bright-hued
flowers.
“He seems very friendly"-bitingly—“toward you !"
“Was he ?"
Glory's retort was checked by a rustle of silks. A
woman stood in the archway, holding aside one of the
heavy curtains. Laura, looking up, gazed into dark eyes
that seemed to peer into her soul.
"Mrs. Villard—this is Miss Winright."
Laura rose, timidly.
Then the woman in the archway smiled. She spoke,
"I'm so pleased to see you.” Commonplace, nothing


190 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
more; yet the voice, though it seemed low, was queerly
penetrating.
"How do you like Grimsby?” she added, as she sat
down.
Laura's second impression of the woman quite con-
tradicted the first. In the archway, holding aside the
curtain, she had seemed young enough to be that boy's
elder sister, and stern, and cold. Now, sitting close, she
was gentle, kind, winning, submissively attentive to what
Glory had to say.
"I am afraid," she murmured, “I shall be little able
to help you, Miss Adair."
To impetuous Laura, her friend's appeal seemed weak.
“Please, Mrs. Villard,” she broke in, "try hard-
very hard—to remember. This is so important to us
to me, and to Brother Tom.”
"So you have a brother-Tom-Tom Winright?” the
woman whispered.
Laura hesitated now. It was one thing to encourage
the woman to speak; another to ask questions that stirred
up the mire of the past.
Glory's conscience was untroubled as her fair face.
"I didn't go into particulars over the telephone, did I?
No, I just mentioned a case Mr. Villard had. Well, it
was a divorce suit involving a couple named Winright.
They were relatives of Miss Winright."
Laura thrilled with gratitude that her keener-minded
friend threw over the exact relationship a protecting veil.
"It would be twenty-eight years ago, perhaps,” pursued
Glory. “Mr. Villard acted for the respondent, Mrs. Win-
right.”
The dark-eyed woman pondered.
"Mrs. Lucile Winright," put in Laura.
Mrs. Villard turned to her.
ira


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 191
"So, you, Miss Winright, are a relative of-of that
Mr. Winright? Not his daughter, I know, but-
Her question did not answer Glory's. Laura Winright
noticed that. Her eyes searched the kindly, sympathetic
face; then looked away, repentant of her momentary sus-
picions.
"You recollect the case, Mrs. Villard?” Glory's tone
was actually eager.
The woman continued to gaze at Laura Winright.
“I do."
She seemed weighing the pros and cons of a vexed
question.
“Not very distinctly,” she added. “Not till several
years after was I married to Mr. Villard. Still, regard-
ing this case I know a little-a very little. Mr. Villard
was then in Buffalo, and he had known the family, the
Winrights, at Niagara Falls. What did you say was
your father's name, Miss Winright?"
Laura told her.
"Adam Winright?”
The woman, repeating the name, seemed trying vainly
to grope her way through the past.
She was clearly a lady, thought Laura. Perhaps that
accounted for her stilted, almost awkward, way of talk-
ing, just as it did for her soft, penetrating tones. Yet
the girl could not get this thought out of her mind: “This
woman is feeling her way. She either does not know, or
does not tell, all.”
Again her eyes met the woman's, and again she looked
away from the kindly face, ashamed of her suspicions.
“Adam Winright? Of the Winright family, Mr. Vil-
lard rarely spoke to me. He-always, he said that Win-
right, this Winright of the divorce case, was a black sheep.
Yet perhaps he was not all wrong. A good boy, only a


192 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
bit reckless--and women are so impatient, and expect so
much!"
Her tone had a touch of harshness for the dim Lucile,
the too impatient Lucile, of long ago.
"They expect too much. Though I think,” she went on,
"he loved her, and I know she loved him.”
"Could you tell us the particulars of the case?” Prac-
tical Glory spoke.
"No."
“Anything of the wife? The woman divorced ?"
"She was, I think, a sort of actress.” Mrs. Villard
seemed sniffing contempt of actresses. “And a foreigner.
Yes, her name was Lucile-Lucile Meloche.”
The nurse flashed a glance at Laura.
“And there was a child—a boy?”.
The woman gazed beyond her into distance.
"So I believe.” Her tone was indifferent. Then, with
sudden emotion, she turned to Laura.
"Dear girl, why go probing into this dismal past? What
good will it do you? Is it not better—to let the dead past
bury its dead. Old divorce cases-cases involving
people all dead and gone-oh, I suppose you have your
reasons, Miss Winright, and good reasons too: but it does
seem a pity!"
Laura caught her breath. Her heart cried out, echoing
the woman's words. This very thought had formed in
her own mind: “What good? What good will it do?”
She stifled the impulsive outcry of her soul.
“I must find that boy,” she said, with a smile.
Mrs. Villard stared at her. Her deep eyes asked a host
of questions she did not voice. Then she, too, smiled, sud-
denly, sweetly:
"Miss Winright, others have failed to find that boy.
Mr. Villard himself tried very hard, and could not. I
suppose,” she hurried her words, "he--my husband-


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 193
was sorry for the woman. You know, after the divorce,
the court left the boy to her. So it has been told me.
She was very ill in the hospital, this woman, and while
she lay ill the child was given away, and she never saw it
again. And then-then- "
“Then?” Laura's tone was expectant.
Mrs. Villard sat silent a long time.
“What would you have her do?” Her pitying tone
made Laura think of soft spring showers. “Would you
have her live without her husband, without her child,
without her good name? Could you live, dear, if you
were bereft of everything?"
“She died ?”
Mrs. Villard did not answer. She was studying Laura's
face. She shook her head at last.
"If you are a Winright,” she said, thoughtfully, "it
must be your mother you resemble.”
Laura started, so utterly unexpected were the words.
"I do resemble my mother. My father was dark, and
I am fair.” She smiled radiantly.
“And why are you so anxious to learn these things ?”
Mrs. Villard's tone was pleasantly regretful. “Why so
interested—if"-apologetically—“it is not too much for
me to ask?”
Glory shrugged her shoulders.
“As I have said, we wish to find this boy."
“But why?" Soft, insinuating the tones—yet per-
sistent.
"He might be a legatee under Adam Winright's will,”
returned the nurse carelessly. “The will hasn't been
opened, but-well, there was once such a child. We
thought you might know where he is, what is his name.
So we came to find out."
"His name? I couldn't tell you."
The lawyer's widow hesitated.


194 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Remember, Miss Adair," she went on, "Mr. Villard
sought this boy, and Mr. Villard had information which
neither you nor I now possess. The old dockets, the
papers in the case, were destroyed long ago. There may
be court records on file in Buffalo. Mr. Villard, when he
searched, had all that information to help him-knew
regarding the case all there was to know. He knew the
hospital where the woman was sick, the names of the
attendants who waited on her, and, I daresay, the priest
who buried her.” Her smile had just a hint of grimness.
“He made enquiries of every one who might know. He
failed to find the boy, when all the circumstances were
quite fresh in human memories. What can you do, now,
my friends—you, who have, to begin with, only the
woman's name?"
Glory answered with a swift question.
“Why do you wish us to fail?"
"I do not. I wish you to succeed.” Mrs. Villard's tone
had been indifferent a moment before; now it grew
earnest. “God knows I would have you find that boy, if
only because James Villard tried to find him, and could
not."
Her tones were earnest, but her look was hopeless, dis-
couraging. Laura caught her sleeve, drew closer to her,
gazed into the kindly face. “Help us, please,” she pleaded.
"I believe you can help us, more, perhaps, than you think."
A long time the lawyer's widow sat silent. At length,
reluctantly, she shook her head.
“No, Miss Winright. It is hopeless. Can you suc-
ceed, you who are so distant from these things, when
James Villard, who was close to all the facts, failed?”
Glory intervened.
"Surely there is some one else who can help us?”
Eagerly Laura watched the kindly face. Her hopes
hung on the answer. “If we find this son," she told her-


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 195
self, "we find the Man in Grey. And we must find him.
I must find him.”
"Surely there is some one, Mrs. Villard?” She re-
peated Glory's urgings.
"There is one man on earth,” said the woman. "Just
one, Miss Winright. James Villard questioned him at
the time, and wasn't quite convinced that he told all the
truth. He used to be a theatrical man in those days and
knew this woman—this actress, this Lucile Meloche.”
Again Laura discerned the faintest hint of contempt in
the tone. “In the days before she fell ill, he wanted to
take the child. Mr. Villard suspected he might have taken
it. But I do not know where that man is now. He was a
sort of ne'er do well, as you would call him, living by his
wits, and drifting all over the world.”
She seemed to deliberate on the phrases, as though
fearing an error in her rendering.
"Even if you did find this man, it might not be wise
to ask him. He was very strange. A little oh, queer !
Perhaps, if you did learn his address, it would be best to
write. He might tell you something if he wished.”
"And who is he?” Laura's tone was eager. “And
where?”
"Where, I don't know. Maybe in the west. He is the
sort of man might go to new places. I have not heard of
him in years—many years. His name
Laura leaned close.
“- is Pat Burnville."
The two younger women exchanged glances.
"Pat Burnville !" echoed both.
Glory recovered herself.
“But, Mrs. Villard— ” she began again.
Laura sat back, watching the kindly face, listening,
wondering—and noticing, oddly, with what tragic con-


196 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
seem
in met the C.
sistency Glory Adair's most penetrating questions seemed
to fail.
"I remember very little of the matter, very little,” in-
sisted the woman.
At last she rose suddenly, and caught Laura's hand.
“Do not prod into this poor old past, Miss Winright,”
she urged. “Let the dead past cover up its mistakes, its
sins-yes, its tragedies. Live your own life, dear girl-
you have it all before you. Let the lives that suffered
and ended be forgotten. Can't you do that? Isn't it
better, now?”
Laura's resolution met the challenge.
"I shall find this Pat Burnville and talk to him.”
“There is no use," returned the woman. "He is danger-
ous. And, what is there to learn? The child is dead. I
know-dead."
Her voice was dry; stiffly she sat, as though her words
and her thoughts were far apart. Then she smiled, her
face lit with tenderness.
"I'm so sorry, dear Miss Winright, that I can't help
you. But, remember, no good ever comes of stirring up
these old tragedies. Let the dead alone, dear girl, and
live your own life. Yes, I am sorry- "
Laura's last impression was of a weary-eyed woman
with tears in her voice clinging appealingly to her arm.
Glory went down the walk with furrowed brows.
“What does she know that makes her so sorry for
and talk torde is danger
you?"
"She was a lawyer's widow," returned Laura, wisely.
"And a lawyer sees many tragedies.”
They walked thoughtfully down the Stone Road, past
the fine country homes, into the modest village. Serried
armies of peach trees guarded them on every side. This
time, Glory was oblivious.
“We have to do it at last,” she murmured, resignedly.


MAN WHO COULD TELL EVERYTHING 197
seeni
“We have to go to Harry Burnville, and ask what rela-
tion he is to Pat Burnville, and where Pat Burnville is to
be found? And that means-yes, that means we have to
0,tell him everything."
She grumbled, and with Laura boarded the next train.
It was late in the evening when they crossed the Detroit
car-ferry. From the Union Station they telephoned Burn-
ville's office in Woodward Avenue, but could get no re-
sponse.
"He's still out of town, I suppose," commented Glory.
“We'll call in the morning."
They did so. On the seventh floor of the tall office
building, the door of Room 73 stood ajar. “Harry Burn-
ville, Private Detective Agency,” announced the gilt-let-
tered sign on the glass, with the postscript:
"Walk In.”
In walked Glory, past the grumbling stage and once
more serene, turning over in her pretty head some facile
scheme for locating Pat Burnville without disclosing to
his namesake the vital facts she had learned.
The ante-chamber was neat, clean, orderly as Harry
Burnville himself. The door of an inner office, standing
ajar, revealed a desk perfectly clean, a filing cabinet, a
book-case and a few minor items of office furniture, all
spick and span.
In the swivel chair before the desk lounged a man with
his back to them. His feet were on the desk. There
hung over him a filmy cloud of blue smoke; a rank odour
of cheap tobacco.
Laura glanced at a gleaming mirror on the opposite
wall. The man's face was reflected there. She started
sharply back.
The swivel chair rasped round, and the occupant's heavy
feet hit the floor with a thud.
“Well? What d'you want?" he snarled.
22mes


198 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Laura's glance took in the smudgy dressing gown, the
threatening unshaven face, the bleary eyes, the straggly
grey moustache. In his hand the man held an ill-smelling
pipe. She shrank, as from a growling cur.
“We would like to see Mr. Burnville," put in Glory.
"A' right. Sit down.” He half kicked, half pushed, a
couple of chairs toward them. One chair tottered and
fell. The brute in the dressing gown made no attempt to
right it.
"When will Mr. Burnville be in?” Laura's tone was
anxious.
“He's right here."
“Where?” Incredulously the girl's eyes searched the
room.
"Here.” The ogre, with a gurgling chuckle tapped his
breast. "I'm Burnville.”


200 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
incoherent in his rage. “Here! Here!" He slammed
over the pages of the diary. “Here 'tis! Buffalo! Win-
right case, Buffalo! That's where he is."
“Buffalo?" mused Laura. She knew why Burnville was
in Buffalo.
But Buffalo was within a few hours of Grimsby. Buf-
falo was the old home of Lawyer Villard, the place where,
so far as she knew, Lucile Veloche had been divorced,
and had died.
Glory laughed.
“Call me a liar, will ye?" growled Pat Burnville.
"I can't do that, Mr. Burnville.” Glory leaned close
to him. Laura had a sense of sickening shock. “So Harry
is your boy?”
The old man caught a note of challenge, and again his
temper flared.
"He is! He is !"
“He doesn't look it. He dresses like a prince and acts
like a gentleman.”
To Laura's surprise, Pat Burnville subsided into the
swivel chair, and let go an approving chuckle.
"That's me Harry! He goes in for style and fine
clothes, does Hal. Pat's all for dirty duds and honest
comfort.”
Laura felt annoyance. All this by-play of contradic-
tion was getting them nowhere. She feared this unwieldy
brute, she longed to run away from him, she lingered
only because there were questions to be asked. She was
eager to hurry Glory: Glory, who seemed quite unafraid
and in no haste to go.
"Do you know," said Glory, “we called on Harry be-
cause we wanted to find you?”
“Me?"
"That's correct, isn't it, Laura?”
Laura nodded weakly. Upon her memory was written


THE WOMAN WHO COULD TELL 201
in letters of fire Mrs. Villard's warning against this man.
His hoarse chuckle as he took up his pipe sent a shiver
through her. She would question him because she had
to: but she was eager to be through.
“We wished to ask a few questions, Mr. Burnville-
just a few.” She made her tone propitiatory. “That is,
if—if it is not imposing on your kindness."
His sudden smile was like sunshine kissing a crag.
"Ask to your heart's content, miss." Half rising, he
bowed with supreme grace.
Laura, suspicious, frightened, yet determined, went on:
"It is rather a long story, Mr. Burnville. To cut it short
—to keep from imposing too much-did you know my
father, Adam Winright?”.
Burnville smoked diligently.
“Very like I have seen him."
“Or any one else of that name?"
Laura felt his cautious eyes studying her keenly.
"No, miss.”
"Perhaps," she urged, insinuatingly, “a Mrs. Win-
right-a Mrs. Lucile Winright ?"
Pat Burnville removed his pipe. He gazed at the red
rug. His mind seemed groping in dim corridors of the
past. Laura waited.
The man at last glanced up. Laura was surprised by
the friendliness of his smile.
"I may have heard the name, miss. But in my time
I've met so many people and heard so many names "
"Try to remember, won't you?”
Before the radiant smile, Laura's terror had vanished.
The fault was Glory's, for provoking this man to anger;
handled as she meant to handle him, he would tell all he
knew and keep his terrible temper in leash. “Try, please.
It means so much to me! She was an actress, I think-
it would be twenty-eight years ago


THE WOMAN WHO COULD TELL 203
“You tell her you know nothing. Tell her you've forgot-
ten. Why don't you tell her the truth, that you're
ashamed-ashamed to admit you ever knew Lucile
Meloche ?"
“Ashamed !” he roared. “Ashamed! I'm not. I'm
proud I knew her and glad I helped her. Poor girl!" He
sat back in his chair, his shoulders humped, his face white,
his huge frame trembling with fury. "Poor girl! Poor
girl!”
"You help her?" scoffed Glory.
"I did. It was when that hound, Winright, threw her
off like a worn-out coat ... why? Just for a bit of a
temper, and what's that?” He softened. "Old Pat him-
self has a bit of a temper.”
"She was to blame in the divorce "
"That's a blasted lie!" shouted Pat. Then, with a huge
effort, he gripped his unruly temper, and sat fuming,
glancing from one to the other of his tormentors, as
though fearful of their questionings.
“Of course she was to blame."
“No!” The thunder tones rolled up again. “No! The
man was wrong-wrong-wrong! I never knew him,
but I knew her. I knew her when she lay in that hos-
pital, nigh unto death. And that poor little baby—that
poor little baby "
He choked, did the ogre, and began to wipe his eyes
with a huge red handkerchief.
"The baby?” put in eager Laura. "What happened
the baby?”
"I don't know."
“And Lucile Meloche?” Laura pressed her eager
questions. “And her husband? Is he alive?” She was
fairly surprised at her own acumen in putting the ques-
tion thus.
A subtle look came into the deep-set eyes.


204 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Ah, miss—me memory-
He looked down, abashed, at Glory's scornful glance.
Then he commenced to clean his pipe, knocking out the
ashes on the shiny desk.
"I didn't know so very much about Lucile Meloche,”
he murmured, smoothly. “No-I saw her very little.
And Winright—well, him I never saw. But there is a
woman can tell you the whole story of Lucile Meloche
from the cradle to "
“The grave?” Laura flashed.
Burnville tightened his lips.
“Umph!”
“And who is the woman?”
"You know her, I guess ? Eh, pretty?”
He chucked Laura familiarly under the chin. She
snatched up her hand to strike him; then halted, terrified.
“Who is she-please?” The daughter of Adam Win-
right was very humble.
"Oh, I'm not telling that.”
Miss Winright glanced at Glory; but the nurse seemed
in no haste to essay Burnville again.
"Listen, Mr. Burnville," urged Laura. "Here is what
we were told at Grimsby, a little place in Canada, by Mrs.
Villard, the widow of the lawyer who looked after the
divorce case.”
Pat Burnville commenced leisurely to saw a plug of
tobacco with a bone-handled jack-knife. He kept his
eyes on his task.
"Huh?" he grunted.
Laura told him what she had gleaned from Mrs. Vil-
lard. Burnville leisurely filled his pipe, tamped down the
tobacco, struck a match.
“Mrs. Villard told you that?” His tones now were
smooth as oil.
“Yes, just that. Nothing more.”


206 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
that you'd told lies about her to her husband, ashamed
that you'd lied against her in court, ashamed— ”
“Stop!” The volcano seethed; the huge, mountainous
body rocked. “Me tell lies against a woman! Me! I'd
singe in the fires of hell a thousand years before I'd do
what you say. No—I did what I could to help her, miss,
I did, and—I'm telling the truth, brown eyes,” he bel-
lowed, annoyed by her look of doubt.
“You, Pat Burnville, you couldn't tell the truth."
“Couldn't!" So angry was he, Pat Burnville forgot to
curse. He staggered to his feet; he stood blinking at
Glory. “You-you "
Laura clutched the nurse's arm.
“Come, Glory, come away.”
“I'm disgusted with you. To swear away a poor
woman's good name-
"Stop it! Stop it !" roared the man, frantic in his
anger. “You lie! You lie! I never saw her till they
came from the hospital, knowing I'd played a bit. 'We've
an actress woman sick, they said. “D’you know her
friends ?' "
He still seethed, though less violently. Glory hid her
elation; her face wore the same contemptuous sneer, the
same look of profound disbelief. Pat Burnville writhed
under it.
"Well, she hadn't any friends—she was down and out.
And I—I helped her. When they thought she was dying,
they took the kid away. I don't know where the kid is.
That's all there is to that. Nigh twenty-eight years ago."
His jerky words vibrated with anger. “I told 'em I'd pay
her hospital bill, but afterward, they said it was paid
they didn't say who paid it. That's all I know.”
"Where was this?”
"In New York. The old hospital's gone now. Every-
body that knew about it is gone—not that they paid much


THE WOMAN WHO COULD TELL 207
attention to her then, or remembered her a day after
she passed on, or cared whether the kid they took lived
or died. That's all, I tell you."
Glory Adair sighed.
“Thank you, Mr. Burnville. And—who is the Man
in Grey?”
Burnville stared; then laughed shortly.
"Oh, you do well to laugh,” snapped the nurse. "That's
pretty good for you."
Pat Burnville's voice soared.
"I don't know what you mean."
“Well, this Winright-where is he?",
"I don't know. Never saw him.”
“You knew him?"
"No. I just knew of him. At the hospital they called
the woman Mrs. Meloche. She told me the other name."
He sat, his brow a thundercloud of wrath. Then,
suddenly, he spoke again, in a queer, wailing voice:
“At night I used to sit by her bed, sometimes, being
they were short of nurses and she hated to be left alone.”
He laid aside his pipe; his eyes half closed. “One-two-
three-four-five—six-seven-eight- "
Laura was terrified.
“What do you mean?" she cried.
"-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-
fifteen-sixteen- ”.
The listeners stared at one another.
“-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-no, no,
my God!"
Laura clung to the nurse in sheer terror of the man's
acting. He stiffened; then slowly came back to himself,
as though waking from a trance.
"That's the way she went, in her delirium. It gets me
yet, when I let myself think of her."
“But what did she mean by it?”


208 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
“I don't know. When her head was clear she told me
nothing much; except that her name had been Winright,
and her man had divorced her, and—and her heart was
broken.”
Laura sat silent. This at least, she felt, was truth.
Her impetuous heart went our across the years to the
lonely woman of long ago whom her own mother had
displaced.
"Of course," cut in Glory, sceptically, “when you spoke
just now of a woman who could tell us about Lucile
Meloche, that was just one of Pat Burnville's lies!"
"Pat! Pat!" Again the thunderous tragedian raged.
"No. Here! I'll write down her address. You go to
her, and insist, and—she'll tell you."
Glory laughed her disbelief.
"I will write it, brown eyes! Here! Blast it! Where's
that pencil?” He found a stub, and, gripping it, cursed
savagely the paper that slipped from his unpracticed
fingers.
"Here "
He halted, and folded the paper.
"No. You don't look till you're outside,” he blackly
admonished. “More, you don't come back—not till
you've seen this woman and got her story. Promise."
"Sure,” purred Glory. "I'll not look at the paper till
we reach the street."
"And don't come back.”
Rising, he strode across the antechamber and fung
wide the door, waiting with fuming impatience while
they passed out.
On the elevator landing seven stories down, Laura still
clung apprehensively to Glory's arm. Timidly glancing
up the shaft, she fancied the thunderous brute leaning
down and menacing her.
"He was horrible!” she whispered. "I thought-I


THE WOMAN WHO COULD TELL 209
thought I'd never escape alive. Glory, do you know, I
fancied you were actually trying to provoke him. Surely
he was savage enough as it was !"
With a handkerchief Glory flecked a bit of dust from
her skirt.
"He was angry, wasn't he? And, Laura dear, what
he told us when he was angry was the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth. But I certainly had to
provoke him to keep him angry. I had to defame him
past all redemption." Her laugh rippled. “Oh, Laura,
palmistry is a tremendous help in sizing up the other
player in your game.”
“You—you sat there like a statue—and read his hand
--and deliberately irritated him ?"
"I had to. His hand told me that if I wanted the
truth, I must get that man raging angry.” As she spoke,
she descended to Woodward Avenue. “You see,” ex-
plained the nurse, "in his aboriginal state, Pat Burnville
is a sheer savage, and in his anger blurts out the truth.
But he has to make his living by his wits. He's schooled
himself, in a sort of fashion, to be smooth and easy and
to deceive. Give him his own way, and the habit that has
become like second nature will rule and he'll tell you lies
without end, and keep his secrets tight in his breast.
Scratch and worry till he relapses into the savage
and "
A terrifying thought flashed to Laura's mind.
"You saw his hands, Glory. Is he-is he the man in
grey?"
Glory laughed.
"If so, he has deserted his colours and discarded his
beard. And that dressing gown was once red.”
“But his hands ?”
Glory consulted her wrist-watch. Then she held up
the folded note Pat Burnville had given her.


210
THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"East or west?" she challenged. “California or-Can-
ada?"
“Canada !” exclaimed Laura, surprised.
Glory unfolded the paper. “I'm prepared to go wher-
ever this note sends me. I kept Pat Burnville provoked
and he wrote the truth. This woman can tell us- ”
Laura stared at the handwriting. Ragged, crabbed,
unnatural, it expressed the man himself. She read:
Mrs. James Villard
Stone Road, just outside
Grimsby, Canada.


CHAPTER XX
THE ROAD OF TEARS
There was nothing for it but the long railroad journey
back to Grimsby.
To Laura Winright, the Niagara Escarpment when
again she saw it suggested the relentless destiny that had
first brought her father face to face with Lucile Meloche,
and thereafter had pursued him to his death. It over-
hung her like the imminent disclosures she sought. What
was it Mrs. Villard had concealed from them? Why
had she concealed it? Was it through pity for Lucile
Meloche, or through pity for Laura Winright? How,
anyway, could they persuade the woman to tell? Might
it not be better, even now, to let her keep her secret?
Thus Laura debated, trudging moodily along the Stone
Road.
"Smile," urged the nurse. "Smile, for Heaven's sake.”
At the grey-stone cottage the maid eyed them curi-
ously, took their cards, and brought back a decidedly
negative shake of the head.
“Mrs. Villard is lying down. She cannot see anyone."
Glory warmed the maid with her demurest smile.
"She's not ill, surely! I'm so sorry. Laura”—she
turned to her companion—"it wouldn't do for us to go
away without telling Mrs. Villard, would it? Tell her,"
she added to the maid, "thatấor, wait, please
With a little pencil she scribbled a few words on the
back of her card:
“We have seen Pat Burnville."
211


212 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"I can't go away till Mrs. Villard has read that,”
she told the maid. “But tell her, please, that we don't
insist on seeing her.”
The girl, returning presently, ushered them into the
sitting-room.
Then Mrs. Villard came. Laura fancied the lawyer's
widow had aged since their last visit. The kindly face
was now cold and unsmiling; yet there was warm expec-
tancy in the eyes.
"You found him soon.” She did not stop for polite
parley. “And—he told you— ?” She remembered
herself. “Sit down, please. You must excuse me, but
I'm really interested, even though I didn't want you to
go probing into these things.” Her eyes questioned the
nurse.
“He told us a little," began Glory, “but- "
“The child?”
"No. He declared he knew nothing as to the child."
Disappointment shadowed the dark eyes. “You'll
think it queer of me to be so interested in what's no con-
cern of mine,” she apologized. “But you, Miss Winright,
were so interested yourself!"
Glory silently handed her Pat Burnville's slip of paper.
At sight of the handwriting, Mrs. Villard seemed to
stiffen.
"It is his writing,” she commented, oddly. "Pat Burn-
ville's writing."
"He said,” pursued Glory, "that you could tell us the
entire story of Lucile Meloche.”
“T!"
She turned on Laura a tragic smile.
“Dear girl,” she urged, "cannot you let the past alone?
It holds nothing but sorrow. It will do you no good to
know."
"So Pat Burnville was right?" flashed the nurse.


THE ROAD OF TEARS
213
Mrs. Villard looked down.
“Yes,” she at last faltered. "He was right. I do
know."
"And”—Glory's tone grew very gentle—"you'll help
us, Mrs. Villard-you'll tell us everything?”
She must right then have felt her handicaps. She was
not a man like Burnville, she was not a detective as Burn-
ville was. He could use influences that were not hers.
She must plead where he might even dare threaten. If
this woman refused to tell, she had no means to make her
tell.
Mrs. Villard sat a long time, deliberating.
"I have said it is better to let the past lie in its grave,".
she protested. “I can see the harm. I have tried to put
away all thought of telling; I see no good in telling. But
- who knows?”
She gave a queer little shrug of her shoulder.
“At least you'll answer questions?" pleaded Laura
Winright.
The dark eyes shone.
“Yes, Miss Winright, I'll do that for you. I'll answer
questions, Miss Adair.” Her manner was nervously ex-
cited. "Mr. Villard was a lawyer, Miss Adair. You
shall be a lawyer and I a witness-a hostile witness, I
warn you, but a witness in the box, sworn to tell the
truth. So far as you can secure it”-her glance was a
challenge you are to have the truth ..."
Laura started. This was another than the kindly, tear-'
ful woman who had pleaded with her to give up her
dogged search. This woman was under stress of emo-
tions that Laura Winright could not fathom. She had
been brooding; she had been threshing out this problem
in her own soul; her broodings had brought her to no
decision, yet had lifted her out of herself.


THE ROAD OF TEARS 215
AGRO
he or of a man who traded with the Caribs up the river
Maroni — "
Glory's quick forefinger dipped into her palm, a way
ja r she had of emphasizing a mental note.
“Caribs," she repeated. “A cruel, barbarous tribe,
cannibals sometimes? So Lucile Meloche grew up in
Cayenne, which; you tell me”-she smiled—“is not the
garden of Eden. Yet Lucile Meloche, thirty years ago,
was in New York ?”
"Her father was unfortunate. He left the army."
“Cashiered?"
Mrs. Villard shrugged her shoulders, but stiffly.
"He was I am told he was a brave man. Why should
I sully his memory?"
"He came to New York?”.
“To Salem. It was still a great port in those days.
He intended to make his fortune but- "
“He failed ?"
"He died so I am told," she qualified. “That was
thirty years ago. Lucile was then about twenty."
"And beautiful?” whispered Laura, visioning the face
of the picture.
“As to that— " Again the queer shrug completed
the sentence. “She became an actress."
"It was then she met Mr. Winright?"
The witness nodded assent. Glory Adair, Laura re-
alized, was painfully feeling her way for an opening.
Mrs. Villard hastened to qualify.
"I called myself a witness," she said. “Yet you can-
not expect me to speak of first hand knowledge. My
husband, you see, was lawyer in the divorce proceedings.
It naturally follows”-her tone was studiously imper-
sonal—"that what a lawyer's wife learns of his cases is
information gained at second hand, and, therefore, does
not constitute evidence in a court of law. She speaks


216 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
at a greater distance than an actual participant. Her
memory of what she learns is apt to grow dim-yes, very
dim."
Glory disregarded her.
“They fell in love ?"
“I have reason to believe she loved him very much."
“Yet within two years he sued for divorce.”
The woman studied.
"It is a very strange world, Miss Adair. Are any two
people cast in identical mould? No. There was the
difference in race. Then she had the southern temper;
those born under the tropics are quick to anger, I have
heard say. He had ambitions: she was a drag, as he saw
it. Then, too, in those days the woman who had been
an actress lived always under a cloud. Yet if he had
not loved her at least a little, what he heard would not
have hurt him. And if she had not cared, her heart would
not have broken. What could she do? Poor-friend-
less—alone—and he- "
"He was wealthy?”
The witness shook her head.
“Just well to do—his parents, I mean."
“You knew them?"
“No. This all happened, you see, before I married
Mr. Villard, and about the time of the divorce they
died.”
"He had a brother ?” Glory's questions were coming
quick and fast.
“Yes—somewhere in the west, I think.”
"Did you know him?”
"Not then.”
“Afterward?”
"I—I heard of him, afterward."
“Was there hard feeling between the brothers ?"
Laura fancied she caught the drift of this questioning.


THE ROAD OF TEARS 217
The brother, Harold, might have been the mysterious
visitor to Adam Winright; might have come back again
and again to demand the price of silence. With bated
breath she awaited the woman's answer.
“No.”
The tone was positive.
“On what grounds was the suit?”
"Incompatibility.”
Thus far the testimony merely corroborated what they
knew, and pieced together a little more neatly the story
of the old letters and Pat Burnville's chance hints.
“Now, was there another man in the case ?"
"No."
The answer was emphatic. Its emphasis startled
Laura. Again came the tap of the forefinger into Glory's
palm. She was putting away another mental note.
“Where did Pat Burnville come in?”
“Afterward. He had been an actor, and was mar-
ried. He did not know Lucile Meloche till after her
husband left her; then he befriended her and her child.
He wanted to take the boy into his own home, such as
it was."
"I see," mused Glory, disappointedly. “Did he get
the child ?"
"Not then."
"Or at any time?”
Mrs. Villard hesitated.
"I do not know."
"You suspect him?”.
Again the shrug of the soulders. “Lucile Meloche
suspected him.”
Glory deliberated. Her next question she put very
slowly.
"After the divorce, this woman wrote to her husband ?”
Mrs. Villard's hands trembled; her lips tightened to


218 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
a line. Then, "Poor thing,” she murmured. “You must
remember
“She wrote to her husband ?"
“One letter."
"And its purport was—what?”
Glory knew; and Laura was well aware that Glory
merely tested the witness.
"A very foolish letter, I understand.” Mrs. Villard
seemed pleading the cause of the discarded wife. “Even
the oldest and wisest of us say things we do not mean.
She was young and impetuous, remember-hot tempered
-and-yes, she had suffered. Suffered!” She dwelt on
the word. “It was a foolish letter—a wicked letter-
yet-
“Justified ?"
"No, not justified.” Glory's look insisted. "She wrote
-oh, well, she wrote she would train her son-his son-
to execute vengeance "
Her rigid face softened suddenly into a warm smile.
“Ah, dear!”—her words were for the younger girl-
"love makes us do foolish things, sometimes—yes, and
wicked things. That was foolish and wicked. Yes, and
vain-is not vengeance in the hands of God?”
The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. The
dark eyes saw, not the two watchers, but a terrifying
vision.
“Afterward, she lay ill in the hospital, and, when they
thought her dying, her boy—he who was to have wrought
vengeance-he was taken away—and "
Emotional Laura wiped her eyes. Mrs. Villard turned
to her.
"You have a kind heart, Miss Winright. I love you
for it!” Rising, she drew near, imperious no longer.
“Will you let me kiss you?"


THE ROAD OF TEARS 219
Laura flung her arms about her; then flushed, abashed
at her own impulse.
Glory Adair, her mind intent on the time-limit, inter-
vened.
“Lucile Meloche believed that Pat Burnville had
spirited away the child?”
“She suspected. She never knew. Now Pat Burnville
denied; again, he refused to say. No one seemed to
know. Perhaps—perhaps the baby died while she lay
sick "
Her look grew grim and hard.
“A punishment, I suppose, for her wickedness. Only,
it was not all her punishment. There is one thing more-
just one "
She rose, and went to a little writing-desk in the corner
of the room. . She moved very softly, gliding rather than
walking. Laura's wondering gaze followed her.
She turned at last.
“The other day I told you all the papers in the Win-
right case were destroyed, and they were, but I still
have this "
She handed Glory a newspaper clipping.
"Read it, if you wish,” she whispered. "I—I would
rather not- "
The clipping was faded yellow. No date showed;
Glory's quick scrutiny found here and there a turned
letter, hint to her keen mind that the paper was printed
before typesetting machines were common. “That must
be Detroit,” commented Laura when they had read a few
lines.
The headline was inconspicuous:
DROWNED MAN IDENTIFIED
The body washed ashore at Bois Blanc on Tuesday was this
morning identified by Adam Winright, shipping clerk of the


THE UNANSWERED QUESTION 225
Again Laura was impressed with her own unfitness
for such a quest as this.
But Lucile Villard was speaking, telling of her child-
hood, of her grandfather who traded with the Carib
Indians of the Maroni, and of her father, the French
captain at the convict station. There was one time that
she accompanied her grandfather to the interior as a
little child, and was taken by the Indians, and rescued
only after months.
“That,” said Glory, "was where you learned of the
poison?”
Uneasily the woman's eyes questioned hers.
"I saw them make it," she returned at last. “You
mean the querari? But my father knew of it and had it
before then. The Indians used it to tip their arrows and
the darts for their blow-pipes. It kills, oh, so quickly!
There was no cure for it, the surgeons used to say. They
tried cauterizing-burning, you know—but the poison
spreads almost instantly. I have seen animals struck
with the arrows run not a dozen yards, then drop quite
dead.” She jerked her thumb downward. "Like that!"
“Your father knew it? The officer ?”
“Yes. He brought some with him to Salem, when
he left the army. Well, things did not go as they should,
so one morning- "
She shrugged her shoulders.
“He poisoned himself ?”
"Querari,” and the woman almost smiled. “It is a
long time ago. I was a chorus girl then. Just before
that I had met Harold Winright. He came from a town
near the Falls—Manchester, I think they called it. His
parents died about then. I thought he was the only son,
but in the last days”-she shivered—"he spoke of a
brother who had gone to Michigan. I did not see that
brother, though, till long afterward.”


226 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
“You did see my father?”
The woman nodded. “After-after the trouble.”
Laura's tender soul shrank from deep probing into
these old wounds. But Glory Adair went calmly ahead
with her questioning.
Harold Winright, it seemed, had been ambitious.
"He was clever," said Lucile Villard. “I was so be-
neath him. He would be a great man. I-I was just a
woman. And what, after all, is a woman? If she
cannot help a man, she should stand aside. But I did not
think so then. Then, it hurt."
“Then, you wrote the letter?” Glory was merciless.
Lucile assented.
“You must forgive me. I can never forgive myself.
I was ill then, with all the worry and the heart-break.
... I nearly died, just after. . . . I hardly knew
what I did. I had made all kinds of threats. In the
madness of the moment I did write that letter. Then I
got out the poison. I knew what I meant to do. Yes, I
must have been mad ... quite mad. I thought it
could last forever, that hate of mine. It was horrible.”
"You would wait twenty-one years ?".
“And my hate did not last that many days."
“But the burrs?”
“The burrs?" The dark eyes searched Glory's face.
“Or thorns. I know of them.”
The nurse snapped open her locket.
“Those?” The woman's voice was harsh, her throat
suddenly dry, as though she were about to choke.
“Those? Oh," and she smiled, a hard smile. "Those,
too, came from Cayenne, from the jungles of the Maroni.
Now and then the Indians used them instead of darts in
their blow-pipes. They have a trick, too, of throwing
them with a sling. They are very sharp and they cling to


THE UNANSWERED QUESTION 227
whatever they touch. Try to brush them off, and
so "
She slapped her hands together.
“They stick, just like that, into your fingers. Many
a time when I was with the Indians did I tangle in those
burrs. My father brought these with him to Salem.
They were among his curios, that he showed to Harold
Winright. That was before we were married, just be-
fore my father died. None of them was poisoned, then."
“But one was, afterward."
"How do you know?” Intently the woman searched
Glory's face. "You know so much of this."
“The poisoned thorn was the twenty-first, the one you
meant to send your husband when "
"When the boy was grown. Oh, yes. It is all past
and gone, now. I was wicked—very wicked. There is
no use denying. That is what I meant to do. To
send one every year, this, that, any way I could, to show
him I had not forgotten.... Oh, if I'd only had
those years to send them! But it all ended so soon.'
She gazed with moody eyes far away, seeing neither
of the watching women.
“I had threatened. He grew very much afraid of me.
He went away to Detroit, saying he was going hunting
in Northern Michigan with his brother. But I knew I
could find him when I wished; that, year after year, I
would never fail to reach him, to remind him of what
was coming. I put the burrs in my jewel case, and
waited, and watched my baby grow, and planned what
he should do.
"The next thing I heard, Harold Winright was dead.
Then I broke down, and had to go to the hospital. They
knew I had been an actress, and that is how they came
to send for Pat Burnville. He played tragedy in a big,
roaring way-oh, I can't forget the way he used to play it.


230 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
Lucile Villard sighed.
"It is a long time ago," she murmured. “They are all
gone, now. Yes, all gone."
Glory Adair sat a moment in silence, as though she
held a question on her lips. At last she rose.
"It is too bad,” she said, gently, “that we have to call
back all these tragic memories.... Harold Winright
is buried at Detroit?”.
Mrs. Villard nodded.
Retracing her steps along the peach-lined Stone Road
toward Grimsby village, Laura Winright had a queer
sense of coming back to earth from some other planet.
"I mean to see his grave," declared Glory Adair,
grimly.
At Detroit, next day, after much search, they found in
old newspaper files the brief story of Harold Winright's
death and burial. Official records verified them. And at
last, in a secluded corner of Woodlawn cemetery, they
found a neglected stone:
HAROLD WINRIGHT
April 11, 1864-June 2, 1887.
Glory stared at it harshly. It was as though Palm-
istry itself lay buried in that grave.
Laura did not smile, yet there was a lilt in her heart.
To her, Harold Winright was nothing. They might
begin their search once more at the beginning, but-her
father's name was unstained, even by the smirch of a
divorce. That, to her uncompromising soul, was a very
vital thing."
"I'm glad, Glory! You were wrong and I was right-
yes, from the first."
Glory gazed at her doggedly.


CHAPTER XXII
THE IRRETRIEVABLE STEP
Laura Winright felt elated. To her, Glory Adair's
caustic retort was a mere Parthian shot, covering enforced
retreat.
Glory's entire castle of fancy had tumbled in ruins.
For a solution of the mystery—if there were indeed a
mystery–Laura was driven to accept Harry Burnville's
commonplace ideas. This man, Webster, had some sort
of hold on her father. He had threatened. He had
blackmailed, or tried to do so. He had visited the Ghost
Room at night. Finally, failing in his threats, he had
struck.
True, there was no record of any Andrew Webster, or
of money paid to or transactions with Andrew Webster,
in her father's books, and her father, as a methodical,
careful man would have made note of such dealings.
But no! That was merely Glory's theory. If Glory
were wrong about the divorce, might not Glory also have
been wrong in her interpretation of Adam Winright's
real nature? Glory, after all, knew Adam Winright only
from repute and from his hand-print, and from a single
rencontre. How, then, could she know him as well as
the daughter who had known him nearly twenty years?
Of course Glory was wrong. Only Glory's super-
abundant, self-assertive confidence in her palm-reading
had instilled into Laura's mind a like blind confidence in
Glory's theories.
Laura breathed easier when she thought it all out.
232


THE IRRETRIEVABLE STEP
235
But Ross was no longer at the hospital. He had left
that morning.
“He should not have gone so early," the matron told
them, “but-well, he positively insisted.”
The thought came to Laura's mind, instantly: "He has
gone away." Why she should think that, she could not
tell. Yet it seemed that he might go away from Mait-
land Port. The old car was a wreck. They had not
ordered a new one. The chauffeur might be anxious to
secure another place. After all, he was merely a chauf-
feur, and as such, had to work for a living. She, who
had never known concern on that point herself, suddenly
appreciated the servant's point of view.
Yes, though Ross had been maimed in her service, she
had never taken trouble to assure the man that his place
was waiting for him.
. That prosaic aspect of the situation had never before
struck her. Yet anxiety on that point was the only pos-
sible explanation of his haste to leave the hospital.
If he had left that morning, however, he might still be
at the garage. She telephoned from the hospital, could
not get the number, and impatiently hurried out to the
waiting taxi.
"I'll stay here,” said Glory. "I've just found a most
interesting case.”
“Take me, quick, to Castle Sunset," commanded Laura
Winright.
Only when she was crossing the lawn toward the garage
did she feel the first hint of hesitation. It had been easy
in the old days to say, “Do this, Ross,” or “Drive there,
Ross.” But now it was different.
At the little gate she halted, challenged by a thought
that flashed to her. Harold Winright, thirty years ago,
had made just such an unlucky mesalliance as this. He
had married a French chorus girl. Laura pondered an


236 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
· I can take cod: Well, I'm not if the car is
instant on the trouble that had come of that unequal mar-
riage.
“But I'm not marrying any one,” she told herself,
showing her white teeth in mockery. “I'm going to tell
a chauffeur that his job's always here, even if the car is
not. . . . Afterward? Well, I'm not an impatient
little fool. I can take care of myself.”
Her fingers closed on the latch of the gate.
Yet still she hesitated, conjuring up the dread of where
this all might end. She was a very human girl, but she
had been bred in an aristocratic tradition. Regard for
class distinction was a part of her training. "I am not
marrying anyone,” she repeated to herself; but she knew
that after what had happened at Otter Creek, her bidding
Ross stay here could have but one meaning in his eyes.
So she stood, running over in her mind the tragedy
that had come upon Harold Winright and Lucile Meloche
just because they wed in haste without taking count of
these things. George Annisford was in her class. Nick
Ross was not. Blood counted, and so did education, and
so did generations of training—and she knew she would
make a horrible, horrible mistake. She saw the girls of
her own rank who knew her, the friends she had met in
Detroit and abroad, pointing at her, as Harold Win-
right's friends must have pointed at him thirty years
ago.
Again she laughed, shortly.
"Why, even my dad wanted to marry Lucile Meloche!
She is a lady—a perfect lady. A little training "
Again her thoughts took a turn.
"Is it in the Winright blood ?" she questioned herself.
First her uncle, then her father, and now herself, tread-
ing the same dangerous path.
"I don't care," she whispered, in a burst of decision;
and opened the gate.


THE IRRETRIEVABLE STEP 237
The garage doors were open. Overhead, someone was
moving about.
“Ross!" she called.
“Laura Winright!"
He came down the stair, still limping.
“You are packing up?" she accused him.
He grinned.
“If the Ross phonetescope were perfected, I could show
you as fine a moving, talking picture of packing up as
you could wish. Just take a look, will you ?"
She hesitated; then preceded him up the stair. She
cast a rueful glance at the disordered room above.
“Why?” she asked. Then, with a touch of hauteur:
“Who said you could go ?”
""The car's a hopeless wreck. I had an expert in auto
diseases diagnose the case while I lay on my back. He
brought the remains to town, then the clinic developed
into an autopsy. 'Nothing doing till the Resurrection,
says Mr. Expert.”
Laura sank into the chair he pushed forward for her.
“That isn't an answer?”
Ross just smiled at her.
“Laura Winright, it's no use pretending. I won't try.
There's lots more cars in the world, you're going to say?
True for you. Also, there's lots more chauffeurs. But
when I leave here, there'll be one less."
“You won't leave."
“No?”
"I won't let you.”
She caught herself. Desperately she tried to reassert
her position as mistress, to put him in his place as servant.
"Ross, you're too good a chauffeur. Of course we'll
have another car right away. Besides, Tom has to be
consulted.”
"He'll not object.”


238 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
“What are you going to do?”
Still she tried to play the mistress, but she felt that
the rôle was feebly taken.
"I? Oh, I suppose I'll perfect the Ross phonetescope
and win fame and fortune.” An instant he reverted to
the old vein of ironic pleasantry. “I've a new scheme
that surpasses them all in possibilities, though. It's a
hummer." His tone was eager, as though he would
carry all things before him in the sweep of his enthusi-
asm. “It beats the old phonetescope idea a million miles.
Transmitting sight and sound simultaneously by wire-
less. Just think what it means in this war right now.
Up there your aëroplane observer with his tiny trans-
mission machine, photographing the enemy's lines thou-
sands of feet below. As he skims along, his instrument
visions everything. Yonder, miles away, the general
staff watches a screen. The picture of the enemy's lines
is laid before them instantly. They see every movement
of the enemy's troops at the very moment they move.
More than that, they hear every sound.”
“Can you do it?" she breathed.
"It can be done. It's just a step aside from the line
I've been working on. I can do it-in time. And when
I do it, I'll
"Make a fortune?”
He laughed.
"I'll give the invention to my country.”
“You're joking?"
“Oh, I suppose I am,” he muttered, in a tired tone.
His enthusiasm faded. “It's been failure and failure and
failure, this old phonetescope of mine-failure piled on
failure. I guess if this new version of the thing is to
decide the war, it won't be invented by me. Anyway,"
he concluded, "there's something really better. If the


240 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
He let go ber tesis.
"11 I most wait... You are going-when?"
"Crick as I can be at the hotel a day or two.
There are things to be straightened up here. But I'll
be out of this piace inside an hour."
“Good-bre," she said.
“Good-bye."
She went down the stair. She passed slowly through
the latticed gate. She had hesitated so long there—a
shiver of misgiving shot through her now, as she lived
again her bitter inner fight.
She had taken a step that was irretrievable.


THE BROKEN SHACKLES
245
The next moment, in came Tom Winright, ushering
Lawyer Airth.
Daniel Webster Airth, Attorney-at-Law, grasped
Laura Winright's soft hand in his cold, flabby paw. He
was tall, cadaverous, stooped, with eyes deep set and a
nose like the beak of an eagle. He coughed twice before
he spoke.
"Pleased, Miss Winright.” But his eyes showed no
pleasure, only embarrassment.
Tom seemed embarrassed, too. He sat very straight,
but his slim fingers nervously twisted the tips of his
moustache.
In the awkward silence that ensued, Laura Winright
glanced from the one to the other. The lawyer coughed
again.
"I presume Mr. Winright told you— "
Tom cut in, harshly.
"I've told her absolutely nothing, Airth, and I refuse
to be a party to telling her. You insisted on it being
done, and it's up to you to do it. These dirty jobs are
lawyers' work. They're not suited to respectable men."
Airth flushed beneath his sallow skin.
“Mr. Winright-ahem "
He spent a long time clearing his throat.
"I protest, it is an imperative legal duty. There is
absolutely no alternative.. I appreciate your attitude-
ahem!—but-ahem!—your feeling does you credit-- "
He floundered.
“What does all this mean?" demanded Laura.
Tom Winright, still twirling his moustache, frowned
on the embarrassed lawyer.
"Talk up, Airth,” he at last urged. “Get it over with,
for God's sake. It isn't pleasant business for any of us.
I hate it, but if it's got to be done, do it.”
Cica.


THE BROKEN SHACKLES 247
1892, and the mother is recorded as having died ten days
later. You follow me, Miss Winright?”
“Quite, Mr. Airth.” Her tone was unemotional.
She saw Tom fuming, manifestly impatient of the
lawyer's slow story, holding himself in check only by a
palpable effort.
"Now, it is established by credible evidence, secured
by Mr. Burnville, who is acting under instructions from
our firm I beg of you, Miss Winright, to remember
that we are merely carrying out our legal duty, even
though it is necessarily painful-it is established, I say-
ahem!-that you were living here with Tom Winright
in 1895. There is at Detroit no record of another mar-
riage by Mr. Winright, the decedent. There is no record
of any child of that name being born. In short, there
is an absolute lack of any evidence that you were actually
the daughter of Adam Winright, the decedent. A-
ahem !-a painful situation, I may say. I found it very
embarrassing."
He had a spasm of coughing, and wiped his beaked
nose with his handkerchief.
Laura Winright waited. Her heart beat rapidly; her
whole soul was intent. Yet her face stayed smiling.
“Mr. ·Airth,” she urged kindly, "please go on."
She realized his wondering look.
"You understand, Miss Winright? This much we
knew; the late Mrs. Winright died in 1892. She left an
only child, a son-in short, Thomas Winright.”
Tom Winright looked miserable.
"We faced that situation. Might there be a record
elsewhere? It was hardly credible. At this point we
discovered that in March, 1895, Adam Winright, the
decedent, took as a foster child one Laura Gowan. She
appears to have been not even formally adopted, but
was taken by him on probation from the Michigan Chil-


248 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
dren's Aid, in whose charge she then was. It is not
mere presumption, Miss Winright-ahem!—I shall still
call you Miss Winright "
He had another coughing spell. Laura Winright
waited, hopefully.
"You understand, Miss Winright?" Himself, Airth
could not understand her calmness, her high disdain of
this huge calamity. “Thomas Winright is, obviously,
the sole legatee of the entire estate of Adam Winright,
the decedent. As a foster child, not even formally
adopted, in the absence of testamentary provision, you
cannot share "
"He means," put in Tom Winright, impatient of the
long agony, “that since nothing was willed you, Laurie,
you can't get a blamed cent. But he has to put it in this
peculiar legal patter of his, for fear you'll understand.
And he's mistaken, Laura. We'll divide things just the
same."
"Mr. Winright-ahem!—it is impossible,” interposed
the lawyer, gravely. "Such things can't be done. The
law is strict, and it must be administered, and I regret-
ahem!—it is a painful thing for me to say, I do assure
you—ahem!—the law positively shuts you out of any
share, Miss Winright. You cannot share.”
Tom rose, and gripped her hand.
“Mr. Airth,” he said, "I just take leave to tell you
that you're mistaken. Whatever is mine, is Laura's, as
long as the sun shines on us both.”
Still Laura sat silent.
Realization was coming slowly. Adam Winright was
not her father. Adam Winright could not be her father.
What the old records at the Winright store had vaguely
hinted, what the verbose lawyer had been trying to tell
her, at last grew clear. Adam Winright was not her
father. . . . Yet, across the years, beyond the grave, she


THE BROKEN SHACKLES 249
still loved old Adam Winright, who had held her on his
knee.
As for the money, it did not matter.
Nay, it had always mattered; and its vanishing mat-
tered now. These many days it had lain a burden on her
soul. She rose, with a sharp gesture, and radiant happi-
ness shining in her blue eyes.
"No, Tom,” she said, simply, "if it's not mine, I won't
take it."
"Laura! I say, Laura !”
"I'm not sorry, Tom. I'm glad! I'm glad! It's a
burden lifted from me. Don't try to change me, for you
can't. I'm free. I'm glad to be free. Thank you.
Thank you, both."
“But-Laura— "
“No, no. It's all right. I can make my way, Tom.
It won't hurt me to work for a living. I'll go right
away.”
She rose.
"This very night, Tom. That is all, Mr. Airth?
Then good-bye, and thank you.”
She went out, leaving them staring.
She remembered, as she came into the sunlight of the
lawn, that other day she had let George Annisford go,
and she had gone racing down to the cliff edge, joying
in the breaking of her chains.
She laughed to the sunlight. Then, with a keen ear,
she caught a familiar sound that she had not heard for
days. It came from the garage, the familiar clink of
tools on metal.
She ran across the lawn to the lattice gate.
Nick Ross glanced up as she entered. He was on
hands and knees, dusty and greasy, unwiring the model


250 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
phonetescope from the work-bench he had brought down-
stairs.
“Nick!" she cried.
"Laura Winright! I almost forgot the be-all and
end-all of my existence—the famous Ross phonetescope,
destined to put the photoplay business where it belongs
and to revolutionize the art of war."
He grinned.
“Nick!” She bent over him like a hovering bird.
"Just guess what's happened?"
"I couldn't in a thousand years. But you look per-
fectly radiant. It must be good. Did you find a nickel?”
"Better than that." Her exuberance echoed his. “I
lost a fortune."
She told him, in a few words; then waited, with a
sudden sinking of the heart. Might he be, after all,
merely the fortune-hunter he had pictured himself? All
her new-found world of happiness hung trembling in the
balance.
"Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Laura ?”
His tone held a question. His arms clasped her. His
lips met hers.
“Laura ?” he repeated.
Laughing, she pushed him away.
“Now, I must go over to the house and pack, and
make ready to go out into the world and earn my living
like any other poor working girl. . . . But I'll see you
often. ..."
“Always.”
She frowned; then laughed away the frown.
"Just look!” she exclaimed. “Look what you've done
to my white waist with those greasy hands. And now
that I'm a working girl and everything's so high, I must
be careful of my white waists. Ugh!"
She ran gaily across the lawn to Castle Sunset, Nick's


CHAPTER XXIV
THE HAND OF NICK ROSS
Laura Winright closed the door behind her, solemnly
as though, with it, she closed a chapter in her life.
Indeed, that was what she did. She realized the fact
when she halted inside the door.
Through its stained-glass panes, little rays of coloured
light streamed into the shadowy hall, weaving a bright
new pattern in the old carpet. The place had all the
silence of a sanctuary, and all its impressive shade.
Laura Winright's soul, storm-tossed through the hoúr
just gone, found eager rest in its peace.
She passed slowly along the hall, wondering. Memo-
ries of her father rose at every step. Her father? Adam
Winright was not her father, never had been! Yet he
had lain dead in that room, and she with trembling fin-
gers had lifted the white sheet that covered him, had
clutched his dead hand, had turned the palm to the light.
Swiftly she glided into the room, and knelt there. Im-
pulsive tears leapt to her eyes. Before all things she was
bound to avenge him; bound to discover the truth of how
he died; doubly bound now that she knew in him no
longer a father, but just a benefactor.
"But what can I do, now?” In sudden illumination
she recognized her helplessness, stripped of everything
that could buy assistance. Her hands clenched. “I
shall go on alone,” she told herself. “Even if no one helps
me, I shall go on. Tom may give up, but I never will.
Never."
She rose, dry-eyed now.
252


254 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"See here, Laura, is there anything between you and
Annisford?”
She smiled.
“I'm going to marry Nick Ross.”
“The devil you are! You! A Winright!" Tom was
actually perturbed.
“But I'm not a Winright.”
“Oh, bosh!”
There was, she felt, no use arguing with him. But
she was her own mistress.
"I'm going to pack my things,” she announced, as she
rose from the table. “Then I'll kiss you good-bye."
His response surprised her. He merely laughed, in-
differently.
“By all means. I daresay you'll be back in a week
I'll have Mamma Judy keep your room ready for you.''
His eyes were cold. There was no smile in them.
She was startled. Was he glad to have her go?
She had sat there, dawdling over the dinner, longer
than she thought. A glance down the long hall told her
that. The level rays of the declining sun streamed
through the open door of the Ghost Room at the very
end of the hall. With her foot already on the bottom
step of the stair, she halted.
She would see one more Huron sunset from the west
porch, and then—then she would go.
She turned from the stair, and went on through the
Ghost Room. The French windows stood open. A
cooling breeze swept through them, fanning her cheek.
She realized how feverishly excited she had been.
Did she really understand it all? She asked herself
that question as, sinking into her father's arm chair, she
stared out upon the red and gold of the lake. Thus she
had often sat, as a child, on summer evenings, on Adam
Winright's knee.


THE HAND OF NICK ROSS
255
The hour and the place called up many memories of
him. The light slowly died out of the west. Laura
glanced about her, startled, almost fancying she could
see him sitting across the table from her, or moving
slowly along the shelves, searching with peering eyes for
some favourite book.
She shivered, though the summer night was warm.
Desperately she tried to think of Nick Ross; but at every
turn her mind confronted the haunting image of Adam
Winright—Adam Winright, who had been kind to her,
who had loved her as his own child, who had dandled
her—yes, and whom she had found here, dead, in this
self-same chair, the night she reached home from Eng-
land.
It was just at this hour.
She put her hands over her eyes, as though to shut
out a horrifying vision. Cold chills coursed through her.
The sun had gone, and the lake lay dark at the foot of
the cliff. Spectral shapes danced on the lawn, and went
slinking along the cedars. Perhaps the man in grey was
prowling there. Terrors filled her girlish soul, terrors
that the hands pressed tight over her eyes could not shut
out.
She rose, shaking in every limb, and turned on the
lights. She took a few steps toward the windows, still
wide open, thinking to close them: then halted, fearful
of what might lurk in the darkness outside. She sat
there, bathed in light, drawing from it what comfort she
could, haunted by memories.
Half turning, she glanced toward the far corner. The
Ross phonetescope was gone. Laura started. The black-
mouthed instrument with its circling lenses had vanished
from its place. She stared at the spot a long time; then,
curiosity getting the better of her cowardice, she crossed
to it, and scrutinized the wall.


260 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
“With pleasure.”
Glory Adair glanced through it, and carelessly handed
it back.
“Thank you. Now, I want you to come to Maitland
Port with me—at once."
"At once? A rather large order, Miss Adair !"
The detective spoke pleasantly; his face gave no hint
of perturbation. Glory Adair did not relent.
“A rather large order," Burnville repeated. "Still, I
am adept at filling large orders. Only—why?”.
“In fairness to yourself. Also, as a favour to me. I
want you to testify when I unfold the true story of the
Winright murder."
"Murder ?” Burnville rose. “Then you do believe it
is murder ?”
She nodded.
The detective, clasping his hands behind him, eyed the
young woman with unalloyed admiration. She seemed
to quite enjoy his homage.
“You are my antagonist in this enquiry?”
"I was.”
"Was? That signifies ?”
"That the enquiry is closed.”
Burnville laughed, musically.
“You think so? ... What if I refuse to help?"
“That is the charming feature of the situation, Mr.
Burnville. In justice to yourself, you can't refuse. Re-
member, I am asking you to volunteer a private statement
to-well, to Mr. and Miss Winright, and to myself.”
She paused a moment. “If you compel me, I can, of
course, finish my case quite independent of you. Still,
I fancied you would appreciate my proposal.”
Burnville made no immediate answer in words. He
crossed to the bevelled mirror on the further wall.
"You will pardon me, Miss Adair," he remarked, “but


THE MAN- IN THE GHOST ROOM 261
the urgency of the train schedule compels a very hurried
preparation for my trip.”
With a few deft movements of brush and comb, he
slicked his hair into becoming form. He twisted his
black moustache to the correct curl, and whisked a few
almost invisible specks of dust from his natty summer
suit. An instant he debated his collar and cuffs; then
sighed resignedly.
"I am at your service, Miss Adair.” He picked up
her hand-bag for her. “We have twenty minutes to
catch the train.”
"Eighteen," corrected the nurse, requisitioning the
wrist-watch. "The train time has been changed; and,
you see, I scheduled myself to return by this particular
train.”
Burnville smiled, admiringly.
"I presume," he observed, when they were seated in
the railway carriage, "you will vouchsafe no light on your
solution of the problem?"
“The presumption is accurate. I move in a silent and
mysterious way. Publicity sometimes helps; but this
time it comes when my case is finished.”
His look revealed manifest admiration of her cool
serenity.
From that moment, throughout the four hours' jour-
ney, he resigned himself to the relentless fate she sweetly
personified. Their chat was middle distance between
cool and friendly, but concerned itself with common-
places only, never venturing close to the one subject
uppermost in both minds.
It was near twilight when the train swept past Sal-
keld's Bush. An instant later the monotonous song of
the Maitland Rapids smote Glory's ears. From the win-
dow she gazed queerly into the gaping river valley. The
man's eyes followed her slightest movement.
ITUS.


THE MAN IN THE GHOST ROOM 265
But I can't believe you innocent when your own hand
bears witness against you."
Nick Ross stood silent under her accusing gaze.
“Only tell me," she pleaded, "tell me why- "
"I was not here that night,” he answered, doggedly.
"Don't! Don't!" Laura's voice choked a moment.
"I can't believe that. Don't try to tell me. Is it punish-
ment you fear?” She dropped her hands. “Then I
withhold it. I let you go free. Only tell me the truth,
and break my heart—then go.”
She stepped sharply back.
“Go!” she repeated.
Through the open window she pointed to the outer
darkness. Nick Ross smiled faintly.
“Ah, but I'm not going!" The old insouciance crept
into his manner. "Not till Laura Winright goes with
me."
"Oh!" cried Laura, flaming.
Glory Adair clutched Burnville's sleeve.
“This has gone far enough!" she whispered. “Come!"
She swept imperiously into the room.
"Laura, are you mad?” Her voice rang clear in the
awe-struck silence.
Laura glanced at her wildly.
"Glory, you shall not-must not-stop me! I have
found the man who was in the Ghost Room.” She
pointed an accusing finger at Nick Ross. "Mr. Burn-
ville”-she turned to the detective—"you must arrest
that man for the murder of-of my father.”
“Miss Winright-
She interrupted the detective's hurried protest.
"I take full responsibility, Mr. Burnville." She had
forgotten she was no longer the great lady, with the
Winright fortune back of her.
Burnville did not move. A queer smile flitted across


CHAPTER XXVI
THE STILL UNSOLVED PROBLEM
"I can tell what happened that night," began Burn-
ville, "or I can give the entire story from the beginning-
what I consider the beginning?” His glance questioned
the nurse.
"From the beginning."
Laura assented, nervously.
“My father is Pat Burnville.” The detective seemed
groping his way. "You've met him. He's inexplicable
- quite. Nevertheless, he's my father. After all's said
and done, Miss Winright”-he turned to Laura--"though
Pat Burnville has lived by his wits, he has a lot of good
points. He was very fond of me. And, through all
our vicissitudes together, when I was a motherless boy
growing up in all sorts of places, Pat Burnville did for me
according to his lights. He gave me a bit of an educa-
tion. He tried to make me well, better than I might
have been."
He paused. Laura had not anticipated this beginning.
“Instead of becoming a criminal, I became a hunter
of criminals—with some success."
Glory nodded. “The Morand murder case proves
that,” she commented, magnanimously.
Burnville bowed his acknowledgments.
To Laura, this by-play was all mystery. Of the
Morand murder case she knew little. The passage quick-
ened vague suspicions that had first stirred when these
two appeared together.
267


THE STILL UNSOLVED PROBLEM 269
fession, though wherever I went I tried to keep my iden-
tity quiet. Tom Winright learned what I was and put
himself out to be agreeable to me and after what Pat
had said, I was curious and didn't shun the acquaintance.
I accepted Tom's invitation to visit Detroit. He urged
me to locate there—had work for me, he said. I thought,
anyway, it was a good location, and did open an office
last winter, and had a few good strokes of business that
helped me to get a foothold. Tom Winright put me up
at his clubs, and used to sit up with me at nights swap-
ping stories of crime-particularly murders, forgeries and
big cases. He seemed to know every big case in recent
years. He was keenly interested in detective work.
"Occasionally he mentioned Maitland Port, where he.
had been brought up. He wanted me to see the place.
In May-
"To be specific," put in Glory, "on the twentieth of
May- "
"On the twentieth of May," agreed Burnville, “Tom
had a particular talk with me.
“ 'The governor is worrying over something,' he said.
'I can see it, and it bothers me. I don't know what to
make of it. I've asked him half a dozen times. He says
there's nothing wrong. Well, I'm just willing to swear
that he's holding back something.'
“ 'He isn't getting any German spy warnings, is he?'
I asked, jokingly. The papers were full just then of spy
scares.
“ 'I don't think it's that,' he said. “But there's surely
something preying on his mind. He doesn't look at all
well.' He hesitated a moment, then he added: 'There's
been an old fellow who looks like a disreputable long-
shoreman hanging about the place at Maitland Port, and
he may have a bit to do with dad's worry. I've never


270 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
seen him, but Nick Ross mentioned him when I was up
one week-end.'"
Ross nodded.
"I could see," went on Burnville, “that Tom was him-
self worried; and when Tom shows worry, there's some-
thing wrong. Finally he suggested that I call on his
father and proffer my assistance.
“ 'That isn't according to professional etiquette,' I
told him. “He should come to me for help. If you'll
mention me
"He cut in quickly: 'I tell you what, Burnville, you
run up to Maitland Port on the twenty-fourth and I'll go
up too. I'll take you around and introduce you, and
we'll have a show down on the spot.'
“I agreed to that. I went up on Monday morning,
the twenty-fourth, anticipating that Tom had been there
for the week-end and would stay over. I telephoned the
house. Tom was not there. That puzzled me. The
housekeeper told me he had not come home. I used the
long-distance telephone at once to get Detroit. Tom
Winright himself answered. He was all apologies.
“ ‘Annisford has to go to New York to meet Laura,'
he told me. 'I simply can't get away. Stay over till
to-morrow, won't you? I'll try to make the run up to-
night. Or I'll 'phone the governor. Yes, I'll 'phone the
governor right away and tell him to look you up.' Then
he rang off, and I simply waited.
"I stayed on till the twenty-fifth. Tom did not come.
I got tired of waiting and decided to go back on the last
train that night, leaving about 8.15. I had dinner that
evening at the hotel, as usual. When I came down to
pay my bill, before leaving, the clerk handed me a letter.
It had come through the mail, he said.
"Just then I had a long-distance call from Tom at
Detroit. He told me that he'd called the governor, and


272 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
only honest thing was to deliver the telegram to its right-
ful owner. I tried to find a messenger. Of course there
wasn't any to be got. Then I remembered that the Win-
right home was just a block or two out of my way, going
to the station. I decided to deliver the telegram my-
self.”
He paused. His listeners waited, breathless.
"I found I had just time to do that and catch the train.
If anything happened to stop me—to delay me a few
minutes—I'd not be able to get away that night. The
one thing I thought of was the need of haste.
"I reached here within ten minutes after leaving the
hotel. It was nearly eight. I rang the bell. No one
answered. I rang again. No one answered.' Then I
decided there was nobody home. The situation was em-
barrassing. It disgusted me. My dominant idea was to
get rid of the telegram and to catch the train.
"From Tom's talk I knew that the room in the west
wing, at the end of the hall, was Mr. Winright's library.
The door was open, and I saw a fire in the grate. I
stepped along the hall briskly, making all the noise I
could, heard some one in there talking, tapped at the
half-open door, and Mr. Winright said, 'Come in!' I
heard the whirring of the machine in the corner. Mr.
Winright had been talking into it. I handed him the
telegram.”
“There was no one else in the room?" questioned Miss
Adair.
“I saw no one."
The nurse nodded.
“Go on," she said.
"Mr. Winright said, 'A telegram? Thank you. Will
you stop that machine in the corner ? Just press down
the lever and
"I found the lever before he had time to tell where it


274 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"Then,” whispered Laura, “when you left Dad, he
was perfectly well? He showed no signs of illness?”.
“None whatever. Except that the telegram had so
excited him that he paid no attention to me. He seemed
engrossed by the idea that you might reach home that
night.”
Glory interposed.
“When you handled the sealed telegram—which of
course you did not open-
Burnville nodded.
"-did you notice that it contained something about
the size of a piece of sawdust, and quite hard? And
sharp?”
· Burnville pondered.
“There was a little lump, a very tiny lump; I thought
it had formed where the paper inside was badly folded.
If it were sharp, the point did not, penetrate the envelope
fully."
Laura ventured a timid question.
"Why did you not tell us all this before, Mr. Burn-
ville ?"
Burnville regarded the carpet.
"In our business," he said at last, "we do not tell all
we know. To have told then would have put me in an
anomalous position, just as it does now. If there were
murder, which I did not think, I might have trouble.
Furthermore, I had a palpable rival in this investigation.”
He bowed with courtly grace to Miss Adair. “She
showed her hand at the very outset. If the information
I possessed had any bearing on the enquiry, I decided to
monopolize it. As, I daresay, Miss Adair did with any
information she secured independently of me."
“Of course.” Glory Adair curtseyed.
"And that is the entire story, Mr. Burnville ?" she
added.


CHAPTER XXVII
THE HEIR OF CASTLE SUNSET
“Now, Miss Adair !" challenged Burnville.
She eyed him steadily.
“I have made a clean breast of everything. Will you
own up, too?"
"No."
"You believe Adam Winright was killed ?"
"I know he was.”
“Who killed him?”
“Three different agencies. You were one of them.”
"I!” The detective was incredulous.
“You were an unconscious agent. I acquit you of
all intent. Here was a second, unconscious agent."
Snapping open her locket, she shook the twenty-first
burr lightly upon the table. It lay, a dull spot, upon the
polished wood.
Burnville stared at it, amazed.
"You mean, that was the weapon?” Surprised him-
self, he was yet more bewildered that Laura Winright
showed no surprise whatever. “Why, that's just a little
burr. You mean-poisoned?”.
She nodded.
"If you wish—be very careful, don't use your fingers-
you can fit the points exactly into these little indentations
in the telegram. You carried that telegram. It con-
tained the burr. And the burr, as Laura and I know,
killed Adam Winright."
276


THE HEIR OF CASTLE SUNSET 277
At her words, Burnville whitened.
"Miss Winright!” he began to protest; but a certain
pride silenced him.
"That was why the Man in Grey represented himself
to the messenger as Adam Winright, and signed for the
telegram on the morning of the twenty-fifth of May.
That is why, after receiving the telegram, he mailed it to
you at your hotel-knowing that, however perplexed,
you would do the one honest thing and hand the telegram
to its rightful owner.”
“But who is the Man in Grey?”
The nurse showed her first symptom of disquietude.
“Oh,” she said, drily, “I'm not telling."
Three pair of critical eyes were fixed on her face:
Burnville questioning, Laura almost angry, Nick Ross
manifestly dubious.
"Not yet. Whoever he was," went on the nurse,
"planned an almost perfect crime."
She paused. She had not yet heard the evening train
sweep out across the viaduct. She studied her wrist
watch. It still lacked half an hour of train time. She
knew what she meant to do.
"He planned an almost perfect crime," she repeated.
"Yet he did not calculate upon two accidents. There.
was the accident that Harry Burnville, the innocent agent,
wiped his greasy hands on the telegram. There was the
further accident that Laura Winright, finding the tele-
gram with the hand-print, impetuously jumped at a wrong
conclusion. Even then, we'd have found out nothing if
I hadn't, once upon a time, read the lines of Adam Win-
right's hand. His hand showed a careful, methodical
man "
The, old, sceptical smile faintly lit Burnville's face.
“Palmistry?"
“Certainly. A sure, safe guide, too, Mr. Burnville.


THE HEIR OF CASTLE SUNSET 279
“It was a shrewd scheme," pursued the nurse. "Only,
it took no account of the lines of Adam Winright's hand.
The criminal couldn't juggle with them. They told me
that Adam Winright never saw those papers. From that,
the next step was easy. If the dominant note of Adam
Winright's hand was system, the dominant note of the
crime was forgery."
"A curious theory!" Burnville's scepticism would
not down.
"But”—Laura Winright still clung to the main issue
“who sent the burr?”
Miss Adair shrugged her shoulders. Still, she had not
heard that train sweep across the viaduct.
"Maybe I'm wrong," she admitted, modestly. "Per-
haps I'd better tell you what, I think, and let you judge.
I decided that the threatening letters were a bait to mis-
lead Mr. Burnville or anyone else who might investigate.
The man in grey was a will o' the wisp, to be chased
but never caught. I had to brush all that rubbish out of
my mind. I had to get back to a motive. Very likely
Adam Winright's past would furnish the motive. ...
Then I learned of Lucile Meloche."
"That was the same woman Pat mentioned !” ex-
claimed Burnville.
"Precisely. You hadn't the wide horizon, Mr. Burn-
ville. That's where you failed. You kept close to the
immediate trail. You hunted the obvious criminal, oh, so
relentlessly, so thoroughly! I went back thirty years. I
hunted Lucile Meloche. I very nearly had to tell you
about her ... but as chance would have it, you were
in Buffalo, and I met Pat... and he, bless him, he
told us where she was!"
"Pat!" The detective went scarlet.
"The same! Then I found from her that the man she
had married was, not Adam Winright, but his brother


282 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
pose to remind him to change his will. The will itself
is put away safely where it cannot be disturbed. The
man in grey went through the book-shelves and found the
empty envelope. There are figures on it. What do they
suggest to you, Mr. Burnville ?”
“A date?”
"Or the combination of a safe?”
She put her portfolio on the table, and snapped open
the catch. Yet from time to time her eyes turned to the
open windows, and the vines, where she could still fancy
the ghostly face of the man in grey.
She produced a photograph, and a parcel. Patiently she
untied the parcel. Yes, that train must be late.
"Laura,” she commanded, “bring me your father's pho-
tograph—the one on the mantel.”
Her eyes flashed upon the carpet.
“Just notice, Mr. Burnville, how this carpet is laid.
There's a jog on the inner side of the room; the carpet,
even if taken up to be dusted, must always be relaid in
the identical position. What do those worn spots tell
you? There's a spot worn bare at the door, and another
where the windows open; another where people often
crossed to the fire-place; another where your machine,
Ross, used to be. And the barest spot of all-there- "
“Opposite the shelves ?”.
"Opposite the spot where the wall jogs in. There's
your safe. In that wall, behind those books.... No,
Mr. Burnville. Ross will find it. Where is that Ghost
Book? I want you to compare certain dates—the dates
of the grey man's visitations here with these notes of
mine. I took these notes this morning from the time-
clock records at the Winright store."
She had raised her voice. It could be heard on the
lawn. Now she took the photograph Laura handed her,


CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ESCAPE OF THE MAN IN GREY
Nick Ross—Nicol Winright—took Laura's hands in
his. It was all, seemingly, a great surprise to him. He
had been a chauffeur a few hours ago. Now-he did not
trouble to comprehend it.
"He was a blamed good friend, anyway,” he whis-
pered. “I'd rather have him than a billion dollars."
“But the man in grey?" persisted Laura, blindly. "How
- and why—and who ?”
“The man in grey,” said Glory, gently, "did not need
to be in the Ghost Room that night to strike home-
Burnville, gripping the time-clock records angrily,
seemed about to speak.
"The man in grey,” pursued Glory, "might have been
hundreds of miles away. He had his scheme planned, his
weapon chosen, his alibi established by the witness whose
word would go furthest—by you, Harry Burnville. The
telegram was just an opportune accident for him. He
snatched the opportunity. He mailed the telegram to you,
from Maitland Port-it took the place, perhaps, of some
other cunning scheme and he had time-plenty of time
-to get out of town unnoticed, to reach Detroit, to estab-
lish a still more unchallengeable alibi.”
Burnville found voice.
"It's incontestable,” he cried. “Every entry in that
Ghost Book corresponds with a day when the time clock
at Winright's wasn't punched. That twenty-fifth of
May, the day I was waiting here, he punches the time-
286


288 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
"We must hurry," cried Burnville. “He'll get away.
I wish ... no, I daren't stop to telephone. I can't
lose him again."
In the shadows she saw the glow of his dark eyes, and
knew that his soul was intent on the chase. She shrugged
her shoulders. The train would come and go again while
they were running the distance. And she did not mean
Burnville to run.
"You'd catch him to what end?” she argued. “What
good will it do?”.
"What good ?"
“That's just the difference between us," she added,
softly. “You, Harry Burnville, are the genuine detective;
I am merely the amateur investigator. You insist on
catching your criminal—that is for you the one end to be
attained. I am satisfied to solve my problem—and be
merciful.”
“Merciful! To a murderer?".
“No. Merciful to Laura Winright. Merciful to her
father's memory. Merciful to Lucile Villard, who loved
him, never knowing that he still lived—that he had oblit-
erated himself in fear of her revenge—that he was caring
for her son. Yes, and merciful to you."
In silence they reached the foot of the steps, and turned
into a weed-grown path. Burnville seemed ever striving
to quicken his pace. The nurse refused to be hurried.
“What would Laura Winright think?" she demanded.
"Ee is a murderer," persisted Burnville, “The meanest
of all murderers. He killed as his mother married for
mere money."
“What of Lucile Villard? Would it make her any
happier to know that, though she forgave, the poisoned
burr did not ?"
Burnville smiled, darkly.
"You are an enigma,” he said. “You solve a problem
hard, who
fear of her still lived


THE ESCAPE OF THE MAN IN GREY 289
that quite baffles me, and then then you throw away the
glory of it.”
Along the viaduct above them swept the incoming train,
and up the dark face of the hill. The two watched it.”
“It's a long way to the station," muttered Burnville.
His one absorption was still the pursuit. “Yet-we might
reach it."
"We might," commented Glory Adair, “even now. But
-I do not think we will."
Cedars, wild and overgrown, hid the face of the cliff
with a tangled cloak. On the soft evening air the pungent
scent hung heavy. They could hear the pounding of the
breakers on the Huron shore; and in a dull, far off way
the monotonous song of the river plashing over its host
of tiny waterfalls.
Burnville surrendered.
"Perhaps it's best—but you are wonderful.”
“Am I?"
He halted, and, gripping her hands, gazed into her
eyes. All about them hung thick shadows.
"Glory Adair," he cried, "glorious Glory Adair-you
and I, as partners, could take this old world by storm.
You are a genius. And if I might dare look up at you,
I, who have miserably failed "
"You have not always failed. You've handled difficult
cases well. I rather envy you certain of your exploits.
And—I appreciate- ".
“And you are willing?”
Daringly he drew nearer.
"No," she answered. "I am not.”
“My record is against me?”.
She smiled in the darkness.
"It's not that, Mr. Burnville. There's one reason-
only one—why I say no. I am free. I prefer to stay
free. Laura Winright may take unto herself a master


290 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
and be known by her master's name, but-not so with
Glory Adair."
He shrugged his shoulders. Her look grew apologetic.
“Now, that's not exactly correct,” she added, hastily,
“There's another reason, more important still. Monday,
I am going on a case. Typhoid—it's good for weeks."
He laughed, mirthlessly.
"We are friends, anyway?"
"Not the least objection.”
Passing tall white lumber piles and shadowy freight
cars, they reached the innermost fringe of harbour. Afar
they heard the clang of a bell, and the puffing and grind-
ing of a locomotive. The outgoing train with many
lighted coaches emerged from the shadows of the cliff-
face and swept behind them across the long viaduct. They
gazed at one another.
"Well,” said Burnville, “he's gone. That's the last
we'll ever see of-of the Man in Grey."
They walked on. Close to them the harbour waters
rippled darkly against the piles. Glancing up the cedar-
clothed cliff, they glimpsed at its crest the faint lights of
Castle Sunset.
"Less than twenty-four hours ago," murmured Glory,
“Tom and Laura Winright were heir and heiress. Now,
Nick Ross is master up there. Oh, what a queer world
this is! To think that the boy Adam Winright left to
fight his own way in the world and prove himself a man
was his own flesh and blood—and the girl he reared in
luxury was a foundling."
Silently they went through the black tunnel of the grain
elevator. Beyond, gloomy structures loomed in the uncer-
tain light, and underfoot walking was hard; but presently
they stumbled forth into an open space.
Far ahead, at the edge of the wharf, a little crowd had
gathered. People came hurrying to it from the hill. Glory


THE ESCAPE OF THE MAN IN GREY 291
glimpsed tiny lights out on the harbour, which revealed
dark blotches drifting to and fro. Then grew distinct the
murmur of voices and the slow plash of oars.
She gripped Burnville's arm.
“Come!" she cried.
Across the wharf they hurried, dodging scattered
planks and heavy cables. Running nimbly, the girl dis-
cerned that one of the lights was a lantern, held by one
of two men in an open boat. Further out, another boat
bobbed darkly to and fro.
“What is it?" demanded Burnville.
The group nearest was a bubble of discordant question
and answer.
"He didn't fall in, I tell you ... jumped right in
... No, he wasn't drunk ... trying to rescue
some one.... I was standin' right here, an' he ran
up an' yelled for some one to git a boat_there was a girl
fell in. ... No, I didn't see no girl fall in. It's just
some of them kids fakin' they're drowndin' an' yellin' fer
help. That's all. ... Oughter be arrested? You just
bet they oughter. There's too much of that sort of
damned foolin'.... No, I didn't know him. Old
Pete Shippey, I thought. He had grey whiskers, 's near 's
I could see.... Oh, look there, they've got him.
... No, they haven't. ... See here, I'm dead sure
I saw a girl fall in. It was a canoe upset. ... Any-
way, he's mighty plucky, to plunge right in with his duds
on. And if he don't come back the town oughter put up
a monument...."
The discord surged on.
Glory Adair drew closer to Burnville.
“A man's fundamental nature does not change," she
whispered. “You'll see that soon. He forged a letter
from Adam Winright to Laura to give colour to the hy-
pothesis of heart failure. Now, when he's in a corner-
ville.
change, letter


292 THE TWENTY-FIRST BURR
when the game's up-he's forging for himself a hero's
death. He's carrying deceit-forgery_right through to
the end."
A cry rose from one of the boats. A hoarse whisper
went round among the watchers.
"They've got him !!!
Voices came from one of the darkly moving craft.
“Pull hard, you !" cried one.
A shadowy.thing seemed to creep slowly up the grey-
white side of the boat. A lantern, swung close, threw its
light on a bedraggled face.
A cry rang out, shocked, poignant, across the rippling
darkness.
“Good God, fellows-it's Tom Winright!"
THE END
PROTETY
OF THE
NEW YORK
SOCITY LIBRARY,