Ma: Guelpa
The
Famous
Detective
THE
POINTED
TOWER
solves a
Baffling
Mystery
Vance Thompson


Murder Mystery, Clever
rective Work
MR. ELPA
By VANCE THOMPSON
Thick are the veils clouding tu.
issues in the usual run of mystery
stories.
Mr. Thompson has succeeded
in baffling the most penetrating
guesses, in this gripping tale.
Mr. Guelpa is a famous French
detective, who has come to
America to solve the baffling
problem as to who committed
the inevitable murder. The crime
concerns the obtaining of a large
insurance on the life of the mur-
dered man; a phase of the story
which appeals keenly to the inter-
est, on account of the skill with
which insurance companies pro-
tect themselves.
In this case there is a still hunt
for the murderer, which takes in
the detective staff of the insurance
company, the French sleuth, and
a famous psychologist, who joins
in the chase through scientific
interest.
The reader will be interested in
the unravelling of this thrilling
tale.
Other Books by Vance Thompson:
THE GREEN RAY
THE POINTED TOWER
T'T SCARLET IRIS

A. L. BURT
Publishers
CCDAN Y
New York


I
In. Bador





MR. GU ELP, A





MR. GUELPA
The Famous French Detective Visits America and Finds
the Most Bafiling Mystery of His Career Awaiting Him
BY VANCE THOMPSON
AUTHOR OF
"The Pointed Tower," "The Scarlet Iris,"
“The Green Ray," etc..
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers
New York
Published by arrangement with The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Printed in U. S. A.


COPYRIGAT, 1925
BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
Printed in the United States of Amering
PRINTED AND BOUND
BY BRAUNWORTH A CO., INC.
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK


TO MY WIFE
LILLIAN SPENCER THOMPSON
My Collaborator in Life, Love and Letters


1
1
1


CONTENTS
CEASTER
PAGE
I
16
29
.
41
.
53
67
87
.
98
113
136
156
I THE NARROW HOUSE .
II BURIED IN FIRE
III THE WIDOW
IV GRAPHOMETRY
V "EVIDENCE POURS IN”
VI THE RECORD IN THE DUST
VII THE GIRL WHO SAID No
VIII THE CROOKED TREE .
IX THE IMAGE AND THE MAN .
X THE GRAY Coat .
XI THE MOUSETRAP
XII THE SHADOW
XIII EVE IN THE GARDEN .
XIV ARIADNE'S THREAD
XV PETER BARLING
XVI SLEEP AND DEATH
XVII THROWN TO THE WOLVES
XVIII CAPTURED
XIX THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
XX THE GHOST LETTER
XXI DEAD LIPS SPEAK
XXII SEAWAB
172
.
187
.
200
218
230
.
248
269
.
298
.
317
329





MR. GUELPA


。


MR. GUELPA
1
only one light-a shaded one on the sidewall. It
fell upon the bed, leaving the rest of the room in
shadow. And there the man lay, his big head with
ruffled hair and unshaved face on a flat pillow, his
great arms, half naked, muscular, hairy, stretched
out on the bed-cover. He was breathing heavily.
His chest heaved up and down. His eyes, reddish
like his hair, were wide open and the fear of death
was in them; that, and deeper than the fear, amaze-
ment. It was as though he had known vaguely that
men died, but that he should die! He looked down
at the strength in his big arms; then his eyes went
to the women in the room.
There were two of them.
One crouched in a big chair in a dusky corner of
the room. She was dressed in gray, in some kind of
house-gown. There was a shawl drawn over her
head, perhaps against the night air coming through
the window. Under the bend of the shawl her face
looked white and shadowy. White hands lay side
by side in her lap, motionless. Except for the pale-
ness of face and hands and the light in the eyes
she
might have been part of the shadow.
Apparently the other woman was the nurse, for
she was dressed in a uniform of bluish-gray linen.
She was a slow-moving woman, with a strong gen-
tle face. She went to the bedside and moistened the
man's face with water. He tried to speak, but no
words came-only the gasps of breath. He wanted
to speak, but it was evident that now he knew he


THE NARROW HOUSE
3
could not. His eyes, distended with the fear that
was in them, stared up at the nurse. She stooped
and smoothed his forehead, pushing back the wet
red hair.
“I have telephoned for Doctor Hamilton," she
said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, "and he
will be here soon-very soon, now, Mr. Benton."
He must have understood. From where he lay,
he could see the door, and now he watched it, with
fixed expectancy. Always his lips moved thickly in
a vain effort to speak; and he could not. Again the
nurse bent over him. After a moment she went
softly to the woman in the shadow.
“Mrs. Benton,” she whispered.
"Yes?" The apathetic face was lifted for an
instant.
"I fear he is dying."
She leaned forward in the chair and stared at the
man in the bed.
"He is very weak and I fear he is"
The nurse turned, startled, for the dying man
had gasped out something--a few meaningless
words and was making an effort to lift himself up.
The door had been silently opened and in the
light from the hall a little Japanese lad stood, faintly
smiling. He raised his hand in the air, still smil-
ing, and stepped back to make way for the physician
who had been summoned. Doctor Hamilton nearly
filled the doorway. He was broad and tall, a big-
featured man with a short brown beard. He looked


F
MR. GUELPA
for a moment at the woman in the corner and then
went swiftly to the bedside; big as he was he was
light-footed, restlessly active.
“Nurse, why didn't you call me before this?” he
asked abruptly, and without waiting for a reply bent
over his patient. When his examination was fin-
ished he moved to the foot of the bed and stood
there, frowning moodily.
The nurse questioned him with a glance. She
read the answer in his grave bearded face.
The man who did not want to die was dying.
The fear and even the amazement had gone out of
the dying eyes. They were wide open and-empty.
The big chest hardly moved as the breath failed.
But the hands clenched themselves like the hands of
shipwrecked men or those who fall into a gulf; they
were clinging to life. Then they too were still.
A little longer Doctor Hamilton stood, looking
reflectively at the big body on the bed. Then he
signaled to the nurse. Without a word she drew
the bed-cover up over the clenched hands and over
the face, with its wide open eyes.
"Doctor Hamilton.”
"Yes, Mrs. McCune?”
"It is she who needs you now—she is broken-
look"
Mrs. Benton rose; it was as though she had
heard their whispered words. The shawl fell back
from her head, disclosing the set face, without color,
and the pale eyes that stared beyond them toward
1


THE NARROW HOUSE
5
the bed. And when she spoke her voice was also
colorless.
"It can not be," she said, "he is not dead"
Suddenly she wavered and, before Doctor Ham-
ilton could reach her, she reeled back on the chair
and lay there a huddled figure that seemed to have
fallen in on itself. With rough tenderness the doc-
tor lifted her and made her easy in the chair.
"Steady, Mrs. Benton, steady. There, that is
better. You must be strong you know. Quiet."
The very sound of his deep kind voice seemed to
revive her. A little of the tensity went out of her
face.
"You must remember no one could have done
more for him than you have done-think of that,
Mrs. Benton—the sleepless nights you have given-
your devotion-"
This was Nurse McCune
speaking to her with quiet insistence, one hand on
her shoulder.
“Think, too, of him," the doctor interposed in
his quick way, "his suffering is over. He did not
suffer long. Remember that. And now it is all
over.”
"He is asleep,” the nurse murmured.
And while they repeated these platitudes of the
death-chamber Mrs. Benton neither spoke nor
moved, but finally as though the last word were
echoing in her brain she said, “Yes, I am very tired. .
I must sleep."
“Nurse, take her to her bedroom," Doctor Ham-


6
MR. GUELPA
ilton spoke abruptly, as was his wont, but his tone
was gentle, "and do what you can I shall see her
before I go."
He helped her to her feet and the nurse, one arm
supporting her, led her out of the room. When they
had gone Doctor Hamilton went back to the bed,
and pulled down the white sheet that covered the
dead man. He had been there for some time, when
Nakki came into the room, a spectacled youth
dressed in such clothes as college lads wear. The
little Jap glanced from the doctor to the bed and
back again.
"Dead?” he asked calmly, the faint habitual smile
still on his lips.
“Yes," replied Doctor Hamilton, and he drew up
the cover once more, "your master is dead.”
"He was a very fine man,” Nakki said in precise
English, “too bad."
"Wait here, Nakki, I am going to speak to the
nurse.”
He met Mrs. McCune at the door of the chamber
farther down the hall.
"She is resting now," the nurse whispered. “I
got some of her clothes off-she is all right. It is
the strain and when it was over she just seemed to
collapse."
"I shall see her before I go. Where can we
talk? Parlor ?"
The room called the parlor was down-stairs. It
was small, and seemed smaller as the doctor strode


THE NARROW HOUSE
7.
about it in his huge active way, talking, while Mrs.
McCune watched him admiringly but with faint
amusement.
"I didn't mean to bully, you for not telephoning
me earlier," he was saying, "it wouldn't have mat-
tered. Of course I thought I'd pull him through.
But you know the type. Athlete, eh? That type.
All muscles and no physique--big tree and shallow
roots. You'd think the tree would stand for ages.
A puff of wind and it's down. Puff! and your
strong man is dead. Why? I don't know. We
never know. We pretend-and we've got a lot of
Greek and Latin words that sound as though they
meant something, but they don't-"
"His heart, Doctor”
“Yes, good, Nurse, good! When a man's heart
stops beating he usually dies, doesn't he? You are
an informative woman, Mrs. McCune. And heart
failure means the heart has failed. Yes."
Doctor Hamilton had been prowling up and
down the room, tossing his words over his shoul-
der. Now he sat down near the nurse.
"What do you know about him?" he asked.
“Nothing—until you called me in.”
The sum total of their knowledge was not much.
It amounted to this: Mr. Benton had been the doc-
tor's patient once before; that time it had been a
cold and nothing more; then he had gone south, for
he seemed to be fond of travel; then a month or so
ago he had come back to New York, from Cuba, he


8
MR. GUELPA
had said, and wondered whether he had a touch of
malaria-
“I couldn't find much the matter with him, but
you know that type-puff! and the man's dead."
“I never liked him,” Mrs. McCune observed, “he
was a bully, and his friends were like him."
"Roaring fellows, eh?”
“Two men, they came once or twice, but when
he got worse I kept them out."
“You would, Nurse!" Doctor Hamilton said,
then he lowered his voice and there was sympathy
in it. "And Mrs. Benton? She's a gentle little
woman. What do you make of her?
She was
fond of him?"
"She rarely left him day or night. I had to
make her go to bed—when I could. She watched
over him, as though he were an ailing child."
“You'd better stay on for a few days till some
one comes to look after her. You must notify her
family. She's not fit for anything now.”
"I know nothing of her family. I must ask her.”
“To-morrow?"
“Yes."
"Then there are only the servants ?"
“The Japanese boy. He sleeps here. Even
when they were on their travels he took charge of
the house. And there's a colored woman, the cook.
She sleeps out."
“Luella. Yes. I've seen her. I suppose there
is money, eh?"
1


THE NARROW HOUSE
"Oh, there must be money. They took this
house a year ago.
When they were married and
furnished it—that cost money."
“I suppose it would,” the doctor said, with an
eye on the gaudy room; "it is the sort of thing
money likes.”
“I am sure she's been left all right. Anyway,
there's his insurance for he told me about it."
"I'm glad of that. She's a strange little wom-
an," Doctor Hamilton went on; all women were
little from his view-point, "and gentle. The kind
that needs to be taken care of, you know. Seems
crushed; damn it, why do men make women like
that? Dogs!"
"She is always very quiet and repressed, Doctor.
You have noticed it, I see and very strange at
times. I am not sure, for I've never seen it-never
seen her taking anything—but I have a sus-
picion—"
“H’m, you think so ?"
"It may be drugs. Not ether. She couldn't
hide that_."
“She couldn't hide any of them. Dope can not
be hid-and you haven't really seen anything, no?"
"No, Doctor."
"I'll have a look at her now. Come.”
Mrs. Benton's bedroom was dark when they en-
tered. The nurse turned on the reading-lamp over
the bed and the light fell on the woman who lay
there, quiescent, with folded hands and half-closed


THE NARROW HOUSE
11
it down softly on the bed-cover. There was a good
smile on his face. When he spoke there was satis-
faction in his deep voice. And here in this room,
bending over the stricken woman he was no longer
boisterous and abrupt. There was extreme gentle-
ness, more than professional, in his manner.
"It is only that you are all in, Mrs. Benton," he
said, "you've carried on beyond your strength. I've
been noticing it. You've been living on your store
of vitality.
And now nature has called a halt.
You will have to relax and let go.
You are a
healthy woman. You'll come back all right. But
now let go.
The strain is over-there's no need
for holding up now, let go. I'll give you something
to insure a good night's rest and you will sleep."
“Yes, I shall sleep,” Mrs. Benton murmured
quietly, and she laid her hand on the doctor's arm
confidingly. "You are so very good to me.
I
do thank you.
It is just as you said, I only need
rest. But please do not make me take anything to
put me to sleep. I am afraid of such drugs.
Please, Doctor!"
She spoke pleadingly and once more she gave
Doctor Hamilton that shallow fugitive smile.
“You are sure you can sleep?"
“Quite sure, Doctor, if I am left alone. But ]
must be quite alone. In the dark. It is what you
said-strain, and now I am sure I can sleep, but if
any one is near me—even you, dear, Nurse-I shall
keep thinking-thinking


12
MR. GUELPA
"Perhaps you are right, Mrs. Benton. When
did you eat last?"
“Nurse gave me some hot milk, when she helped
me to bed. See, there is still some left."
“No one shall disturb you. Let go of all your
thoughts. Of course you'll sleep. And I shall
call in the morning. Good night, Mrs. Benton."
“You are both very good to me. I am not ill,
only tired, very tired
She turned on her side toward the wall and her
head sank deeper into the pillow. Doctor Hamilton
paused for a moment, listening to her quiet breath-
ing, then he went out. And when Mrs. McCune
had put out the light, she closed the door of the
bedroom and joined him in the hall.
"We shall see to everything in the morning,
Nurse. All the formalities. I have arranged ev-
erything in there," and he indicated the room where
the dead man lay. "You need not do anything.
As for Mrs. Benton, she'll do all right.
You were
wrong about drugs. It is the strain.
to untie herself. I suspect the man was but never
mind. To-morrow you must find out about her
family and telegraph-send for them. That's all.
And you, my good woman, get to your bed. You've
had enough on your shoulders. So have I. Well,
to-morrow is another day.
Good night.
The
Jap will let me out."
Doctor Hamilton watched the nurse go to her
bedroom at the front. It was a little hall bedroom
She's got


14
MR. GUELPA
"He will not come out,” he whispered confident-
ly, "for he is dead. But I lock the door. Why,
not?"
He left the key in the lock and followed the
doctor down-stairs and let him out.
“Good-by," he said, smiling.
Doctor Hamilton grunted a good night and went
swinging down the street.
The little Jap watched him, always with that ex-
asperating and meaningless smile, until he was out
of the house. Then he made fast the door. He
trotted lightly up the stairs. Opposite the death-
room he halted and made a swift gesture in the air;
it was as though he were saying: “You stay there,
Mr. Benton;" then he went up the narrow staircase
to his little room above.
Having told himself to sleep without fear Nakki
slept without fear.
And from the basement to the garret the Narrow
House was dark and quiet-quiet as only two things
are quiet, sleep and death.
As the night wore on even the sleepless New
York streets seemed to share in the quietude. For
a while at least this one spot in a world of noise was
blanketed with stillness.
An hour, another hour; then there was a faint
sound in the silent house. It was as though a
door were being opened-sweeping over the carpet,
perhaps, with a sound as indefinite as a whisper.
Again there was silence, followed by almost noise,


THE NARROW HOUSE
15
less footsteps and the momentary, creaking of the
hand-rail on the stairs. There was no light, and
through the darkness something, blacker than the
darkness itself, moved slowly but without hesitation.
It went down the stairs to the first floor and, more
swiftly, along the hall and down into the basement.
Silence once more; then the area-door grated, as
it was drawn open.
Light from the street-lamp came in, outlining a
dark form dressed in a woman's coat that fell long
and black from neck to foot. It was a mere outline,
for a veil hid the face and the gloved hands were
not visible: a woman clothed in darkness.
She paused, seemingly listening-she heard no
footsteps. Without apparent haste, she closed the
basement door and went up the area-steps to the
sidewalk,
The sidewalk was empty and the windows that
looked down on it were dark. Lifting her veil,
the woman glanced furtively to right and left. She
was alone-unobserved; but as the glare of the
street-lamp fell full upon her it revealed the pale
face of Mrs. Benton. In another moment she had
disappeared in the night.
And once more the Narrow House was quiet,
with the quietude of sleep and death.


CHAPTER II
BURIED IN FIRE
IT
T WAS Nakki who opened the basement door the
next morning and admitted Luella to her kitchen,
The cook was a wholesome brown woman of thirty,
with a plump body and iron-flattened hair. She
took off a coat that looked like fur and covered her-
self with a long white apron.
"Yo had yo' tea ?" she asked. “What you look-
in' a' me fo’?"
The Japanese boy lingered, smiling.
“You
have lost something, Luella,” he said calmly.
“What? What yo’ talkin' about?”
“You have lost your boss.”
"How come?"
"Mr. Benton. He is dead.”
"Daid?
Dat man daid ? Whufore?"
“Last night,” Nakki said, "he died—all over
now."
Luella took a pot from the stove and lifted the
lid.
“That's the very soup I was makin' fo' him," she
remarked, "an' it's good soup. Some one got to
eat it."
16


18
MR. GUELPA
opened the door part way. The room was dark.
Softly she went to the window and raised the shade,
letting in the early daylight. Then she approached
the bed.
Mrs. Benton was lying on her side, her face
turned to the wall. As though she had sensed
rather than heard the nurse's presence, she sat up
in bed with a little cry.
“It is all right, it is all right,” Mrs. McCune said
soothingly. “Did I wake you?”
Mrs. Benton stared at her in a confused way.
"Perhaps," she said. “I do not know.”
She drew her hands across her face two or three
times. She seemed to be coming up slowly from
some great depth of sleep.
"I did not know I could, Nurse, but I must have
slept a long time.”
“And you are better. I can see."
“Yes," and she lay back on the pillow with half-
closed eyes.
She let herself be handled like a child as Mrs.
McCune, in the implacable way of a nurse for whom
nothing is mysterious, made her morning toilet for
her and forced her to eat her breakfast of dry toast
and hot milk flavored with coffee. Mrs. Benton
was grateful but apathetic,
The strain had gone
and left behind it, seemingly, mere weariness—in-
difference-a disinclination for taking hold of the
facts of life. The nurse, remembering the promise
made to Doctor Hamilton, questioned her about her
family and her friends.


BURIED IN FIRE
19
"You must send for them at once, you know."
"But I have no one, no one.”
"Every one has some one,” Mrs. McCune said
bluntly.
“There is no one,” persisted Mrs. Benton weari-
ly, "but I want to tell you everything. You are
so good.”
“Good or not it is my business to take care of
you. And things have to be attended to, you know.
Surely your parents”
But Bertha Benton's parents were dead long ago,
she explained. She had lived with an old aunt, in a
western city—that was in Ohio. And when the
aunt died she had come on to New York. Το
study. There was a dramatic school. She meant
to work hard. She had money enough to go on for
a while, and she did study and work.
Mrs. Benton spoke without hesitation but with-
out apparent interest in what she was saying. Now
and then she glanced sidewise at her companion
through half-closed eyes.
And then she had met Dick Benton. No one
introduced her. She had just met him. It
happened. And she married him a year ago.
A
year ago. They had been happy. Or had they?
Being married was a strange thing, but she was
glad to marry him, Dick Benton. They traveled
everywhere. But not in Europe. She had always
dreamed of that since she was a little girl. Nurse
McCune was a long time drawing this story out


20
MR. GUELPA
But per-
of the apathetic woman, who seemed to be talking
of a life that was so definitely past it was no longer
a part of her.
Practical, common-sense questions
brought little more information. Mrs. Benton had
no friends she cared about, she insisted, no family
or relatives. And Dick had been just like her,
alone. He had some friends, one or two, but she
had never liked them. He had broken with his
family years ago.
She did not know anything
about them. He had never told her.
haps the friends would come. And money? She
was afraid Dick had spent his own money and most
of hers, too. It was the racing. That was all
he cared for and all he did. It was why they went
to Cuba, where he fell ill. But the money did not
matter. Dick had taken care of her.
There was
insurance money.
Oh, a great deal.
That was
her wedding present-the only one she received.
He had taken out the policy shortly after they were
married. He was always thinking of protecting
her. People who did not know him well might
think he was rough, but she knew that he was al-
ways thinking of her and her happiness. Oh, if it
hadn't been for the racing and for his friends and
the drink they made him take! But no one knew
how thoughtful he was for her.
Shadowy facts; the story of a colorless life; the
girl from some little city, who had come up to town,
ambitious for fame or eager to break the monotony
of life, and the noisy roistering man who swept her.


BURIED IN FIRE
21
off her feet and made of her-this! And this,
Nurse McCune decided was a woman who had been
cowed and driven in on herself, and had not yet
dared come out and see that she was free, a free
unit, a free woman. Probably she had friends, a
family; it might be something her marriage per-
haps that made her hold off from them. Anyway
there had been a marriage. It had taken place in
New York. Mrs. McCune had seen the certificate,
as she had seen the other papers confirming the
account of a heavy life-insurance. Richard Benton
had carried on his shoulders for a year fifty thou-
sand dollars for his wife's sake; and now, unless she
were fool enough to waste it, she was safe from
want as long as she lived. But could she take care
of her fortune? Mrs. McCune wondered if the
young woman could take care of herself-even of
the clothes and food and common shelter of life.
A feckless woman! For hours she would sit
brooding over a book-and a book of verse at that!
"Some one has to see her through," the nurse
told Doctor Hamilton later in the day, as they sat
talking again in the parlor of the Narrow House.
He had visited his patient and found her resting
quietly enough, propped up on pillows in her bed.
The light hurt her eyes, she said, and the curtains
were half closed. She had told the doctor she was
better, but tired all over inside and out; so he had
ordered her the rest she needed most. And now
he was striding about the gaudy parlor, teasing his


22
MR. GUELPA
beard and agreeing with Nurse McCune that some
one would have to see her through.
“It's probably all rubbish about her having neith-
er family nor friends," he declared, “but I dare say
there is a reason. Family quarrel, doubtless. And
family quarrels are bitter queer things. Marriage to
that kind of a husband would explain a lot of reti-
cence. And so you couldn't get anything out of
her?”
What the nurse had been able to learn of Mrs.
Benton's life she had already repeated to Doctor
Hamilton, and she went over it again.
“I dare say it's all true enough,” he remarked,
"only she has kept a lot back, poor little woman.
The most illogical thing about women is the lengths
they'll go in protecting a bad husband. Oh, I don't
mean Benton especially. He seemed all right-just
plain bully. And waster as you said. Well,
Nurse, you know what is to be done. Do it.”
Mrs. McCune knew very well what had to be
done, when death steps in and takes a man. There
was the doctor's certificate of death and that was at
hand. She had already telephoned for the funeral
director. He was on his way.
“What kind of a funeral, Nurse?"
"Mrs. Benton wants it to be quiet.
You see
there is no one. There are two of his friends, she
has asked me to notify them. And the landlord.
She mentioned him.”
“Religion?"


BURIED IN FIRE
23
you, Nurse.
"Oh, I do not think she wants anything of that
kind. He was not that sort. If you had heard
him talk sometimes as I did"
"I heard enough from him."
"But of course there will have to be something.
A few words from some one, no matter what he
thought of such things.”
“Dust to dust, you know. Yes, I agree with
Speak to Mrs. Benton again. And
to the funeral director."
"He is to be taken to the undertaker's rooms.
There's a kind of chapel there. I'll talk to her
again. She is just indifferent.”
“Where is he to be buried ? That will have to
be seen to."
“No, he is to be cremated, Doctor."
“What's that?"
"Cremated, Doctor."
Doctor Hamilton was still prowling restlessly
about the room; he glanced over his shoulder at the
nurse, as he passed her, and asked: “Who decided
that?"
"He did. He told me again and again.
He
seemed to have it on his mind. Even when I first
came here and did not believe he was very ill, he
spoke of it. He said it was frightful to think of
a body being covered up with earth and lying there
for years—
“Well?”
"I've often had patients talk that way. Of


24
MR. GUELPA
course I laughed and told him he would probably
outlive us all, but he made it clear enough what he
wanted done in case-well, in case anything hap
pened to him was the way he put it.”
“And what does Mrs. Benton say to this?"
“She was in the room once when he talked about
it-perhaps she heard him say it more than once,
for she rarely left the room, after he took to his
bed. I spoke to her this morning. She seemed
indifferent as usual. She isn't herself yet. But he
wanted it, I know. And really," Nurse McCune
added in her common-sense way, “it is more sani-
tary. And more modern."
"It is what she thinks about it," the doctor ob-
served; he had picked up his hat and gloves from a
chair and made ready to go.
“She doesn't seem to think about that or any-
thing else.
I'll even have to get her some proper
clothes. The things she has won't do."
“All right, Nurse, you know what to do. I'll
look in later."
Unquestionably Mrs. McCune knew what to do.
She was as familiar with the sad routine of death
as with the obscure processes of life. And within
three days all was over. A little funeral procession
of black motor-cars traversed the city and crossed
the long bridge. It consisted of a hearse so incon-
spicuous it might have been carrying anything but
what it carried in its dark interior-a few flowers
and a large casket of dark wood. Behind it fol-


BURIED IN FIRE
25
lowed, as best they could, four cars. The crêpe-
covered figure in the first car was the widow and
with her was Nurse McCune. In the second car
rode Doctor Hamilton and a bright-eyed little old
man who seemed to be comforting himself with the
thought that he was following a hearse with some
one else in it. He was Mr. Selbin, the owner of
the house wherein Richard Benton had died.
"Very prompt he was," Mr. Selbin remarked, as
though he were composing an epitaph for his former
tenant, "no check, but ready money on the day. A
noble character of a man.”
Two men in black coats and gloves, exhibiting
unnecessary diamonds and smoking good cigars,
occupied the third car. One was a shade fatter
than the other. It was he who was saying:
“A good old sport, Jackie, he was a good old
sport.”
as.
"He Not much head but a good sport."
"How long did you know him?"
"About a year or so, you remember-we was
up to Saratoga, Jackie."
“Sure, I remember. Queer how quick it takes
'em.”
"Him? I often told him. Booze did it. I
says to him over to Havana one day, 'It's all right
here. The stuff is good. You can lap it up.
It
makes a king of you,' says I, but not in N’York.
Cut it out there or it'll get you—it's rottener than
poison no matter what you pay for it,' says I."


26
MR. GUELPA
"Rot! There's plenty of good stuff if you
know !"
"But you don't know. Nobody can ever tell
an' if you get a bad lot—there you are, like him,
Jackie. That's what he done an' I told him,
Says I: 'Dick, cut it out. You're ridin' for a fall.'
Well, he fell all right. Ask me! It takes 'em all.”
"How was he fixed."
“Money? Him? It's hard to tell about them
bluffy fellows. He sure was a high talker,
Jackie.”
"He done his best,” said the man called Jackie,
"he done his best,” as though he, too, were think-
ing in terms of an epitaph, "an' he never done me
out of anything."
"Nor me. He was a good old scout, that Ben-
ton person, an' I sure liked him."
In the fourth car Nakki was repeating his famil-
iar ecomium:
"He was a very fine man. Too bad."
And Luella, dressed in black, with a small black
hat crowded down on her flattened hair and powder
on her solemn brown face, added her comment: "It
is certainly a fine cawpse. Fo' a red cawpse it is a
sure beautiful cawpse.
I'll say that fo' Mistah
Benton."
Then the ride ended.
While the mourners stood in deep silence in the
little waiting-room, the body was trundled into a
cold vault. The steel shutter of the aperture was


BURIED IN FIRE
27.
closed upon it. And Richard Benton lay alone,
terribly alone, shut off from them all, in his narrow
cave of darkness and silence. And then the vault
was no longer cold. So fierce a heat woke within
it that, minute by minute, what had been the body
Richard Benton walked the earth in the gross
body he had filled with meat and drink and taken
his arrogant joy inmevaporated like water spilled
in the sun.
In an hour there was left only a hand-
ful of pearl-colored ashes, purified, anonymous,
dead.
The mourners went away.
Doctor Hamilton
rode back in the car with Mrs. Benton, alone. She
drooped in a corner. For a moment their car was
halted by the traffic. The doctor took her hand
and unbuttoned the black glove; the pulse was beat-
ing steadily; he counted it, looking at his watch-
five, six, seven-
Suddenly the pulse leaped as though the very
blood in her veins was wild with panic and fear.
“What is it?" Doctor Hamilton exclaimed.
Mrs. Benton, bent forward now, was staring at
an automobile which had ranged up along side of
them, but the doctor did not see the two men in it-
the glimmer of faces behind glass—before the car
shot ahead and was lost in the traffic. He had
thought only for the woman. She clutched his
arm and clung to him, her face drawn with terror.
He tried to calm her with reassuring words:
"Steady—there is no danger-tell me what it is,"


28
MR. GUELPA
She had been shocked to the depths by those
faces, seen in the window, and his voice did not
seem to reach her; and before Doctor Hamilton re-
alized it he was holding in his arms an unconscious
woman.


CHAPTER III
THE WIDOW
IT
T WAS precisely ten o'clock when Bertha Ben-
ton, accompanied, or rather shepherded, by Mrs.
McCune, entered the building of the Great Orient
Insurance Company in Broadway.
The day without was wintry, a cold wind run-
ning seaward, and both women were wrapped in
furs. The widow was all in black-black cloth,
black furs, a black veil. She leaned on the nurse's
arm, as she moved forward slowly, with lowered
head and eyes that looked neither to right nor left.
Mrs. McCune, on the contrary, presented a picture
of all that was efficient and practical, with her tai-
lored tweeds and fur-trimmed coat and hat. It was
she who led the way and took every initiative until
at last they found themselves in the waiting-room
of the Claim Department.
“We shall have to wait. Not long, I hope,”
she said, "it's a Mr. Ringgold we shall have to see.”
She glanced at a memorandum slip and then
took some papers from her bag and held them ready
in her hand,
“Your headache hasn't come back, Mrs.
Benton?”
29


30
MR. GUELPA
“No, I am quite well now.”
"They keep these offices too hot," Mrs. McCune
observed testily, throwing open her coat, “but
there's nothing to do but wait. We are early
enough and there is no one before us. I trust he is
not already engaged. Ringgold—that is the name.
He is head of the department.”
"It is very good of you to take all this trouble,"
Mrs. Benton said softly. “I do not know what I
should have done, alone."
"I am glad to help you and it is all very simple.
Don't worry," and she touched the widow's hand
protectively.
Then they sat in silence.
Meanwhile Mr. George Ringgold was sitting in
front of his broad office table upon which lay many
papers, folded, or in orderly piles.
His writing
utensils were neatly aligned and the blotting-paper.
was virginal. He had been dictating letters to the
calm girl who was his stenographer and after her
departure he paused before taking up his appoint-
ment list. It was his habit now and then to steal a
few moments from the time owned by the Great
Orient Insurance Company to think of himself not
without approbation.
He was not an old man; that is, he was about
thirty-five or six; and his pleasant reflection was
that he had made of his life pretty near what he
wanted to make of it. Head of the Claim Depart-
ment of the Great Orient! That was something;


THE WIDOW
31
and now at thirty-five-young-looking at that! He
was a stocky active man, with chestnut-colored hair,
where it had not thinned away on top of his head.
His short-sighted eyes looked rather peeringly
through the thick lenses of his eye-glasses. And
he appeared to be just what he was: a reliable and
conscientious worker, proud of his job and proud,
too, of himself, because he was part of that huge
organization. He had no ambition which was not
connected with the Great Orient Insurance Company
and with his career in it. He had received his
business training in a western company, the "New
State." It had been slow going, but he might have
clung to his job out there on the Pacific Coast and
jogged on without future had it not been for The
Girl--the girl who said no.
What he got out of this short romance was a new
ambition. He had wanted to go somewhere, do
things, rise in the world. And this determination,
added to the queer luck that always accompanies dis-
carded lovers, carried him on to New York and to
the Great Orient Insurance Company-surely peer-
less in a world of insurance and on and on to the
headship of the Claim Department. And George
Ringgold was happy. His passion for the girl had
been transformed into passionate devotion for the
company. He loved it because his loyal little soul
had to love something and he worked for it as a man
works for himself, because the company and he
were one, They lived together. He had no other


32
MR. GUELPA
interests. And each day found him the same loyal
man of business, gripping his job and loving it,
reaching up above it, and quite happy as he toiled
methodically in the shadow of his idol: the Great
Orient.
He picked up the appointment list.
Even during the excursion into the background
of his life it had never really been out of his mind.
And now he was once more the flawless part of the
great machine.
He summoned his clerk. “Take them in order,"
he said referring to the waiting list, and picked up
the papers on the top of the pile.
He was scanning them when the two women
were shown in and given chairs facing him at the
table. He looked up with admirably assumed sym-
pathy. It was not a bore of course, for it was in-
conceivable that the business of the Great Orient
could ever bore him, but it was after all a matter of
routine and he knew the type and the story so well;
it rarely varied save in details; but of course he
would have to hear it. The widow in black and
the other woman, as usual. Probably a lawyer in
the offing; he wished he were in the room.
"Mrs. Benton ? I am glad you were able to
We had your letter."
Mrs. Benton thanked him; her voice was quiet
and low.
"It was I who wrote to you about it,” the nurse
interposed.
come.


THE WIDOW
33
me.
"And you, excuse me, you are"
“Janet McCune, trained nurse. Doctor Hamil-
ton engaged me and I was with Mr. Benton until
he died. And now I am caring for Mrs. Benton-
and she needs me."
“Yes, Mrs. McCune is my friend, too," the wid-
ow said, "and she was good enough to come with
She knows everything."
Mrs. McCune hitched her chair closer to the
table, leaving the veiled figure farther in the back-
ground. She slapped down the papers she had
been holding on the table in front of her, as she
began to relate the simple facts concerning the claim
on the Great Orient. She spoke tersely, outlining
the story of Mrs. Benton's life, her ordinary ante-
cedents, her marriage and widowhood. Mr. Ring-
gold listened with businesslike courtesy. So often
he had heard that sort of thing—a fragment of life
at once dolorous and commonplace. His daily
food was death and bereavement. But could he
have seen, at that moment, into the future, he would
have known that Mrs. McCune's statement
sisted not of words alone—blunt words that might
be spoken or written—but that it was the very fabric
out of which drama, romance, even tragedy are
spun.
But how should he know?
The future was for him darker even than the
veil that shrouded the face of the young widow
sitting there in his every-day office. Had he


THE WIDOW
35
her chair; and as she stood up the veil which had
hidden her face, fell back. And Mr. Ringgold,
standing pen in hand, stared at this face, so suddenly,
revealed.
“Mrs. Benton,” he said vaguely.
Recognition seemed to be dawning in his short-
sighted eyes.
“But—where have we met before?"
The woman's face was troubled.
Her pallor
and her black attire gave her a pathetic air of fragil-
ity and helplessness, but her wide steady eyes met
his without flinching.
Gravely, almost regretfully, she murmured:
"You are mistaken. I do not know you."
“But I know you, Mrs. Benton. Where have
we met?” Ringgold persisted, “I can not be mis-
taken. I have to remember things and faces and
names. I have met you. Where? I shall remember
in a moment. I always do remember.”
Mrs. McCune felt an angry sense of uneasiness.
All this had nothing to do with the business in hand.
What was the silly man driving at?
Why was he
staring at Mrs. Benton with hard inquisitorial eyes?
She stood up abruptly and went to her patient's
side. “Does all this matter?" she demanded abruptly,
"suppose you did see her before? When she came
with her husband about the policy in the first place ?"
Mrs. Benton glanced gratefully at her friend,
but Ringgold turned his eyes that way with quite
another expression in them.


38
MR. GUELPA
"I was on my vacation when the policy was
signed,” he said shortly, referring to the date, “and
anyway she would not have to come to this depart-
ment."
"Does it make any difference?" the nurse ex-
claimed sharply.
“Norno—and of course I may be mistaken,"
and turning once more to Mrs. Benton, he repeated,
“Will you please sign this slip?"
She drew off her glove, took the pen and rapidly
signed her name : “Bertha Benton."
Mr. Ringgold compared the signature with that
on the policy. Then without speaking he took a
package of forms from a drawer of his table and
sorting out five of them said: “These are the usual
blanks, five in number. They must be filled in
and signed before a notary public by the undertaker,
the physician who attended the deceased, two disin-
terested friends who knew him in life and saw him
after his demise, and finally, Mrs. Benton, by you.”
He handed her the papers, and as he did so, he
looked keenly at her downcast face. Her eyes were
averted. She was very pale, cold, without sign of
animation. But the troubled look had passed away.
As she took the documents she thanked him in a
few words.
"I'll take care of those papers, my dear," Mrs.
McCune said, and she put them in her businesslike
leather bag, "and now I suppose we can go, Mr.
Ringgold?”


THE WIDOW
37.
“Yes, that is all for to-day. Return the papers
at your convenience," Ringgold replied courteously.
“As soon as possible,” the nurse promised, tak-
ing her patient's arm. “She is not very strong yet.
I must get her home.
Well, thank you.
I've left
a card there on your table with our house address
and the telephone number."
Mr. Ringgold opened the door for them with a
polite bow.
He stood watching them as they tra-
versed the waiting-room and went out into the hall
beyond. When the door closed behind them he
returned to his office and sitting down at his table
inspected the slip on which the young widow had
just signed her name. Apparently it told him
nothing. For a while he sat there, brooding, tap-
ping the table. But surely he had seen that face.
Known it. Where? Here in New York? In
other days in Los Angeles ? Suddenly he straight-
ened up and got to his feet.
Memory was awake.
And this memory sent the blood from his face
and left it sallow. He dropped back into his chair.
Elbow on desk, his head leaning on his hand, he
drooped there, buried in thought. And bit by bit
the recollection came back, a series of facts and
events linked one to the other, vivid, authentic.
"If that is so," and he spoke the words half
aloud, “I must have a note, a letter, something from
her.”
Distinctly he remembered that on one occasion


38
MR. GUELPA
she had written him to postpone an appointment he
had made with her. He had certainly kept her
note. It was his habit to keep every scrap of
paper that came to him; one never knows. He
went to the cabinet and unlocked the drawer con-
taining his private papers, all neatly folded, dated,
bound with rubber bands. It did not take him
any great time to find what he was seeking. It
was a black-bordered envelope. It had not been
sent through the post, but the date of its delivery,
neatly written by Mr. Ringgold, was on the left hand
comer; an old date over five years ago.
The en-
velope in hand, Mr. Ringgold reseated himself. He
took out the letter and spread it before him; it read:
"Dear Mr. Ringgold.
“I am sorry I can not keep my appointment to-
day. But I am ill and unable to leave the house.
Believe me I am sorry for all the trouble I have
given you. I shall call if possible Tuesday at the
same hour.
“Yours sincerely,
"Beth Forsythe."
He studied the handwriting. It was a loose
and careless script, hurriedly dashed off, it would
seem, and in no way resembled the straight, firm
handwriting of the signature Mrs. Benton had
placed upon the slip. No resemblance. More
than disappointment showed in his clouded face.
No, they were not the same; they were not even
similar; and yet he was sure he was not mistaken-


THE WIDOW
39
some certainty deeper than his knowledge told him
he was not mistaken. If he were one to act upon
hasty impulse he would lay the case before the comp-
troller of the company at once. A glow of pride
surged up in him as he thought of the sensation he
would make were he to do so. And then what a
service to the company!
His company.
Dreams
of promotion tugged at him.
But the handwritings
They should have been alike—some unconcealed
resemblance apparent to the trained observer-and
they were not alike. Even the capital B's in the
note and in the signature bore no hint of similarity.
Nothing. He puzzled over them with troubled
eyes. No; and yet
And yet the woman was no other than the one
to whom his company in Los Angeles had paid ten
thousand dollars of insurance money on the death of
her husband, five years ago.
And the circumstances of that case were similar,
in almost every respect, to those of to-day: a year or
so of marriage; a strong man crumbling up sudden-
ly; then death and the young widow, quiet and pallid
in her black garments, claiming the money.
Not
Bertha Benton that time; the name of that widow
in the West was Beth Forsythe. In that case,
moreover, she had not been accompanied by a
trained nurse.
Mr. Ringgold remembered well
enough the man who had come with her, a big fel-
low-he would know him.


40
MR. GUELPA
Different names. Different handwriting. And
the same woman.
He would swear to that.
With sudden resolution he knocked at the door
of the comptroller's office.


CHAPTER IV
GRAPHOMETRY
MR
TR. GEORGE RINGGOLD made no error of
judgment, when he laid the facts of the
Benton case before the comptroller of the Great
Orient. The wheels of the huge implacable ma-
chinery of investigation and control began to move.
One agent was sent to the little Ohio town, where
Bertha Benton claimed she had been born and had
lived out her girlhood with her parents and then
with an aunt; and another man out in Los Angeles
was looking into the Forsythe case. In each of
these cases-one on the eastern rim of the continent
and the other on the western rim—the same woman,
Ringgold was certain, had been the woman to whom
the insurance money had been paid. She, in each
instance, had been the widow, black-garbed, white of
face, with hand outstretched for the death money.
George Ringgold would swear to it; he knew; his
memory held!
The head of the legal department, Mr. Steeger,
took up his end of it. One of his first moves was
to talk it over with the advisory counsel of the
company, Faynis, Cleave and Faynis.
41


MR. .
GUELPA
He was sitting in a deep leather chair, this mom-
ing, in the private office of John Faynis. There
was a lighted cigar in his hand. White-haired,
verging on fat, Mr. Steeger was a comfortable sort
of old man, physically somewhat lazy, but keen
witted and intelligent. A round man and a sound
man.
Near him sat George Ringgold, keyed-up
and important. He felt he was carrying weight.
“No report from Ohio yet?” Faynis asked; he
was standing near the window, looking out, now
and then, at the stone lanes of lower New York;
and beyond, a glimpse of tumbled water and ships.
He was an athletic-looking man, still young, rather
dark, with a good lean face such as any man might
wear with satisfaction; the eyes were remarkable in
a way-set far apart and rarely wide open. 'Half-
veiled eyes; as though he meant to see all there was
to be seen, without permitting any one to read the
thoughts he might be thinking.
“Not yet, Faynis,” Mr. Steeger answered the
question, “if a report comes in I've asked them to
send it on to me here, if it arrives before noon. I
knew you'd be keen on it."
"And the other end? The Forsythe policy."
“There's a man coming on from Los Angeles.
One of the 'New State' lot. What's his name, Mr.
Ringgold?”
"Cross. It's Edward Cross."
“Yes. He can identify Mrs. Forsythe. He
saw her many times in the office out there. And


GRAPHOMETRY
43
the man who was with her. Not that Mr. Ring-
gold has any doubt about it, but we want to hear
what the man Cross has to say. Naturally the 'New
State' is as keen on the case as we are."
“It looks like a plain case,” Faynis observed,
with one of his rare smiles, "and for that very rea-
son, as a wise friend of mine used to say, it prob-
ably isn't.”
“Simple," returned Steeger, rolling in his chair
and reaching for another cigar. "I don't see any-
thing very simple about it. One woman and two
dead men and two companies hit hard. That is not
a simple game to play. It takes a bit of playing.”
"Most games do,” Faynis said, "but as that wise
friend of mine used to say-"
At that moment his desk-telephone rang.
He
picked it up.
“Well? Who? No. I can't get the name.
Spell it? What! Show him in certainly.”
Faynis hung up the receiver.
“Steeger,” he said, "that's odd.
He's the man
I've been talking about-the wise man. I knew he
was coming over, but I didn't know he had arrived.
You'll want to see him."
“Who is it?"
But already the door had opened.
'An office boy effaced himself. Standing in the
doorway was a neat little man, holding carefully in
his left hand a round black hat. He came forward,
bowing, smiling.


44
MR. GUELPA
“Mr. Guelpa !" Faynis exclaimed, and got him
by the hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Faynis. I am disturbing
you?"
“No, no. I am delighted to see you. I've just
been talking about you. This is Mr. Steeger. Mr.
Ringgold-Mr. Guelpa, of Paris.”
"How do you do,” Mr. Guelpa beamed on one
man and then on the other, but he did not shake
hands. Instead he bowed.
“Take this chair, Mr. Guelpa. I am mighty
glad to see you. And give me your hat," Faynis
went on.
"No, I'll keep it,” Mr. Guelpa replied. Then
he sat down, and after inspecting his hat-a
perfectly new hat-he laid it carefully on his knee.
"Your name is introduction enough, Mr. Guel-
pa," and Faynis turned toward the fat man in the
chair, "eh, Steeger?"
"I've got his books," Steeger remarked, "in fact,
Mr. Guelpa, I not only have them, I have read them.
That theory of yours that human evidence is almost
always false-always warped-never wholly con-
vincing—there's something in it."
“You think so?" Mr. Guelpa remarked blandly;
he turned to Faynis.
"I wrote you a letter," he said.
“Yes, and I would have met you if I had known
your boat. My wife will be glad to see you.
And
Mrs. Guelpa and your daughter?"


GRAPHOMETRY
45
"They are here. At the hotel."
"Mrs. Faynis will call on them, of course."
Steeger had not felt that he was snubbed off.
Well enough he knew who this little man was, and
the part he had played in the world-wide battle
against the forces of crime.
Pretty nearly all that
is known, to-day, of the scientific investigation of
crime had been in Mr. Guelpa's brain, he knew, be-
fore it got into practise and into books. Those vol-
umes on technical research, on identification of
criminals, on poroscopy, on traces and imprints
and laboratory analysis were in every library of
criminology.
For thirty years Mr. Guelpa had been at the
head of the Technical Police Laboratory of Lyons
and precisely there and then the modern science of
criminology had been born.
"And Mr. Guelpa was the midwife of that gigan-
tic birth.
World over he had been called in to establish
similar institutions for the detection of crime-from
that of San Paolo in Brazil to that of Rabat in Mo-
rocco; world-over, too, his methodology of crime
was being accepted, in reluctant New York and Lon-
don, even as in Buenos Aires. Steeger knew it.
Mr. Guelpa's new science stood up big as a tower.
One couldn't get away from that. And not only
could he talk and write about crime detection; the
little man could do what he talked about: the acid
test.


46
MR. GUELPA
Steeger remembered how Mr. Guelpa had un-
tangled the mysterious de Granlieu case, 'over in
Paris, when Eva Ryle the "American countess” had
stood in peril of her life. And the Cole case in the
Argentine and many others.
"Mr. Guelpa," Steeger said, "there will be a
good many people over here anxious to see you.
That is the penalty of fame.”.
“And perhaps some who won't be so keen on
seeing him,” Faynis remarked.
"No, no, Mr. Faynis. I have come to see the
men who will want to see me. Beyond doubt. Your
great men. Ah, what men you have! I know what
they write. Now I shall meet them. It is all ar-
ranged. Three men."
"Who are they, Mr. Guelpa ?"
"Osborn. His book on Documents is a land-
mark, eh? and Ledsky, who wrote Manuel. And-
ah, that other? A difficult name. Persifer Frazer,
who makes the composite photographs of handwrit-
ing. They are your great men. And when I have
talked with them I shall go home directly—and fin-
ish my own book.”
Talkative and affable, Mr. Guelpa nursed his
little hat on his knee, and smiled politely. Mr.
Ringgold from his seat, a trifle distant, peered at
him curiously. He didn't think much of foreigners
and the little man was not very impressive anyway.
He was surprised at Mr. Steeger's next remark and
his face darkened with disapproval. What Mr.


GRAPHOMETRY
47
Steeger said was: “We've just been talking over a
case that I think would interest you. Eh, Faynis ?"
"Thank you, Steeger. You've broken the ice.
I was about to ask Mr. Guelpa what he thought of
it.”
The little man's refusal was prompt.
“No, no, I can do nothing. I am here for one
purpose and three men. I can not stay long.
When I have studied their methods, their experi-
ments, I shall go."
“Anyway, Faynis, I am sure Mr. Guelpa would
like to hear the facts,” Steeger insisted.
"Facts? Ah, I am always glad to listen. And
then what can I refuse my friend, Mr. Faynis?"
“That is very kind of you, Mr. Guelpa. And
you know what your opinion means to me."
Faynis was at his desk. He sifted his papers for
a moment and then in cold clear sentences began to
state his case. At first, as the lawyer commenced to
relate the story of the conspiracy, as he saw it,
against the Great Orient and that other company
out West, Mr. Guelpa manifested no special inter-
est. He merely sat there, staring at his hat, his
hands quite still, his face expressionless. Ringgold
from his chair watched him with disapproval. This
little man was shockingly foreign. From his smart,
buttoned-up black coat billowed a bright-colored
neck-tie, decorated with a big agate pin. That was
annoying. And then there was that neat mustache,
so patently dyed an impossible kind of purple black,


48
MR. GUELPA
while the wisps of hair on the bony head were gray-
ish-white. The eyebrows, which should have been
white also, were the color of the mustache. It was
all wrong; it was foreign. The old face, with its
network of multiple wrinkles, had no meaning. And
yet Ringgold waited impatiently for his own name
to be brought into the story.
The woman's name was pronounced first.
"You see this Bertha Benton is the crux of the
case," Faynis was saying.
"Ah, the woman!"
Mr. Guelpa laid his hat carefully on the table,
then he straightened up in his chair. An alert look
shot across the wrinkled face and made it young,
and the leaden eyes behind the pince-nez brightened
into steel.
“The same woman?"
"Undoubtedly. Although she denies it.”
"Have I all the facts?” Mr. Guelpa asked
briskly, "like this: Five years ago a man dies in
Los Angeles. Yes? His widow is paid the life-
insurance money which was her due. It is so?
Now another man dies in New York and his widow
claims from your company a very large sum of
money. You are suspicious. It appears from your
records that the New York widow has an entirely
different life-story from that of the one who re-
ceived the money from the other company. She
was married in New York, but not as a widow. No?
It was, she stated, her first marriage. But if she did


GRAPHOMETRY
49
not tell the truth, eh? If she was that other woman?
Ah, then you say it looks very bad. Well?"
Mr. Guelpa had spoken rapidly. His English,
like that of most foreigners who speak the language
well, was just a trifle more formal than that of the
every-day citizen, but he had the Gallic way of put-
ting his remarks in the form of questions. It was
Steeger who answered him.
"That sort of thing has been done,” he remarked,
"we are always on the look-out."
"As to Mrs. Benton,” Faynis said, "we already
have a good deal to go on. Mr. Ringgold, here, is
fairly certain she is the same woman who appeared
as claimant in the Forsythe case in Los Angeles.
He was with the other company then and he has an
excellent memory."
Mr. Guelpa turned toward the efficient head of
the Claim Department of the Great Orient, with a
friendly smile.
"Ah, Mr. Ringgold. A witness. To identifica-
tion. Yes. He has seen a woman. He has fixed
an image of her in his memory. Now he has seen a
woman once more. He compares the images. They
are identical. Two wonderful faculties to be able
to see and to remember. What did you see, Mr.
Ringgold, and what do you remember?"
Mr. Guelpa beamed as though the one thing on
earth he really loved was a witness and as though in
Mr. Ringgold he had at last discovered his perfect
specimen.


50
MR. GUELPA
"I recognized her," the witness answered anx-
iously, for he feared the little man's smile. "The
company I was with in Los Angeles paid her ten
thousand dollars. It was a pure coincidence that I
should have been here with the Great Orient, five
years later, when she appeared under another name
with this new claim for fifty thousand. I knew I
had met her, although she denied it. At first I was
not just sure when I had known her; but after she
had left I remembered.”
"Memory came back. The image. Yes, con-
tinue, please.”
“I remembered. She was the woman I knew
first as Mrs. Forsythe,” Ringgold went on with a
hint of defiance. “She had made an impression on
me out there she was very young and seemed to
take the death of her husband very hard. There is
such a thing as sympathy, Mr. Guelpa, even in
business.”
"Yes, that would help. So you are quite
certain ?"
“Yes, and I remember the man who accompanied
her. He was big and arrogant, so I remember him
well enough."
"You would know him?"
“Anywhere."
"Continue, please.”
“After Mrs. Benton had left my office I got to
thinking. There was the resemblance and then it
flashed upon me.”


GRAPHOMETRY
51
"Yes."
"I had received a letter from the Forsythe wo-
man in Los Angeles."
"Yes," interposed Faynis, "you might tell us
about that once more, Mr. Ringgold."
"A letter? There would be letters, of course.
Pray tell me,” Mr. Guelpa said softly, but there was
cold scrutiny in his gray eyes as he bent them toward
the man of memory.
"Once I was sure of the woman, it occurred to
me I might have a note from her among my per-
sonal papers. I seemed to have it in mind that she
had written to me about an appointment. When I
found it, 1-"
“Pardon, Mr. Ringgold,” interrupted Faynis,
"here is the letter.”
He opened the folded paper and handed it to
Mr. Guelpa.
“Thank you." But Mr. Guelpa did not look at
the letter; as though unconsciously his active fingers
refolded it into envelope shape and always he scru-
tinized the important face of this one man who had
seen and remembered and was, so far, the only wit-
ness in the case.
"And of course you compared the handwriting
with the writing of Mrs. Benton. Yes?”
“I had only her signature to go on."
"Quite enough. Shall I tell you what you
found? You found the handwritings were totally
different."


52
MR. GUELPA
It was one of the dramatic incidents Mr. Guelpa
enjoyed; he laughed softly to himself, as he noted
Steeger's surprise and the smiling acquiescence of
John Faynis.
“Of course they are not the same. It can not be
possible you thought they would be, Mr. Ringgold ?"
“I hoped they would be, sir.”
“It would have meant our case,” Steeger put in
bluntly, “or a good bit of it."
"I do not agree with you, Mr. Steeger, but let
me see the signature of Mrs. Benton," the little man
said abruptly.
He opened the note signed Beth Forsythe, read
it slowly, held it up against the light and then laid
it face up on the desk. He spent more time inspect-
ing the signature of Bertha Benton. Then he laid
the two papers side by side. He was standing now,
at the table, bent over, looking first at one and then
at the other. At last he picked up an ebony ruler.
He laid it flat on the letter, moving it at varying
angles, and repeated the process with the slip of
paper on which the Benton signature was written.
The three men were all standing near him, watch-
ing every move.
"You are right, quite right," Mr. Guelpa said,
straightening up, and beaming on Mr. Ringgold
with affable eyes, "they are utterly dissimilar. And
you know that is curious, isn't it? For—"
Mr. Guelpa continued, still smiling"they were
written by the identical, the same hand!"


CHAPTER V.
"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
MR.
R. GUELPA had installed himself in an old-
fashioned hotel in Fifth Avenue near Wash-
ington Square. Gloom had long ago settled upon
it, though in the days when New York tippled
openly, it had been as reelingly gay as any nook in
the old town. It still maintained its fame as the
place where one could really dine. And it was
French. The book-stall in the lobby was yellow with
paper-covered volumes. The servants were French.
It offered Mrs. Guelpa a little bit of home. She
had been baffled, anywhere else, by the almost uni-
versal conspiracy of New Yorkers not to speak her
native tongue. In the old dark rooms she found
the kind of comfort she was used to, and, out-of-
doors, her daughter Julie's English was good
enough to make shopping possible. Then there was
Mrs. Faynis, a friend of Parisian days. And there
were concerts. And this afternoon it was to be the
Philharmonic, for Mrs. Guelpa was a musician.
She turned from the tall mirror in their sitting-
room, with a last admiring glance at the image she
saw there. She was a tall, dark, commanding wo-
53


54
MR. GUELPA
man, gloomily handsome; and she radiated person-
ality—a rich and troubled kind of personality which
might have befitted a prima donna rather than the
wife of Mr. Guelpa. One wondered how she had
ever become the mother of the round blonde girl,
suave and placid as cream, who stood at the window
looking down into the avenue, where processional
automobiles and motor-buses passed. Julie had the
beauty of her eighteen years.
“There's the car," she said; it was the familiar
Faynis car, which had called for them.
“Tell your father."
“Yes, mother.'
She tapped at the door of an adjoining room.
"Fa-ather,” she announced, “mother is waiting."
"Waiting, my dear, that's too bad," Mr. Guelpa
exclaimed, bustling in, “I am sorry."
"Are you not coming with us, Jules-Marie?” his
wife said, in her somber way. “Although I could
not expect that of you."
“But you know of my appointment? Professor
Ledsky is coming. I showed you the charming let-
ter from that great man-I am sorry," Mr. Guelpa
apologized, "and anyway Mrs. Faynis is to meet
you at the concert."
"I had thought, Jules-Marie, this was to be a
holiday and that, like other women, I might have a
husband, for this once."
“The holiday, my dear, is for you and Julie.
You forget my book. And then, Hortense, just at
present I am interested in a-woman."


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
55
"Fa-ather!" Julie exclaimed, and she and her
stepfather waited, in complicity, for a temperamen-
tal comment from Mrs. Guelpa. That ample lady
disappointed them. She merely glanced at the natty
little man with the dyed mustache and twinkling
eyes, shrugged her shoulders and went to the door.
Mr. Guelpa opened it, and as they passed he told his
step-daughter she was almost as beautiful as her.
mother; and indeed Julie in her short fur coat,
which was round and blonde, and in her blonde
round hat deserved the compliment; she was like a
yellow rose.
He accompanied them to the car. He had no
sooner returned to his apartment than a card was
brought to him. It was presented by a page, for Mr.
Guelpa had discouraged the American habit of
shouting names up through the telephone.
"Please bring Professor Ledsky here,” he said.
Professor Hugo Ledsky was a distinguished-
looking man. His fame in the world seemed to bol-
ster him up physically. Though he had never seen
him in the body, Mr. Guelpa would have recognized
him anywhere. He had seen in various books and
scientific publications so many photographs of the
great man-pictures taken in his laboratory, on the
lecture platform, and in groups of fellow-scientists.
Mr. Guelpa, who had a brain of his own, kept his
highest reverence for brain in others, and he wel-
comed Professor Ledsky with grave enthusiasm.
So this was the author of that epoch-making
book, Experimental Heredity! For Mr. Guelpa it


56
MR. GUELPA
had opened a new world of knowledge. And this
was the authority, who had first defined the "Psy-
chic Parasites” in that startling lecture that had
shaken the scientific world; he whose studies of the
“transformations of living beings,” had created a
new frontier for experimental psychology; this lean
urgent man, with black eyes gleaming under shaggy,
brows, was Ledsky.
Mr. Guelpa had educated his perceptive facul-
ties—all of them. And he trusted them. His sen-
sitiveness to impressions was very keen.
What
first came to him, when he encountered a stranger,
was a general impression, as though he had sensed
that composite vibration which makes up the man
and is as individual as the lines in the hand or the
pores of a finger-tip. And even before his eyes, be-
hind their glasses, had given their report of the
stranger, his sensitive ears had recorded their im-
pression of the man's walk, the rhythm of his steps,
and, if he spoke, the revealing timbre of his voice -
the things that can not normally lie.
So Mr. Guelpa, as was his wont, flashed a look
at the tall man in front of him, clearly outlined in
the doorway. It was a look of welcome and admi-
ration, but it took in the entire man, and stamped
on his unfailing memory a picture ineffaceable and
exact.
Their hands met, with mutual respect; brain ac-
knowledged brain; celebrity greeted celebrity; sci-
ence confronted science.


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
57
"It was really for this I came to your country,'
Mr. Guelpa began, “to know the gentleman who
wrote your books."
“You are very kind,” Professor Ledsky re-
turned; he had recovered his right hand from Mr.
Guelpa's clasp and was rubbing it gently with the
other, “it is a great pleasure to meet you. You need
not have sent me that letter of introduction from
Lacassagne. Your name had sufficed.”
Mr. Guelpa was not a bitter foe to flattery. He
warmed to the great scientist.
"It is strange about that letter," he remarked.
“Poor Lacassagne died shortly after he sent it to
me. He admired your work.”
“Lacassagne was a great man in his day. He
created the science of criminal anthropology, which
you,” and Professor Ledsky bowed, “are per-
fecting.”
“Helping it on a little, perhaps," was Mr. Guel-
pa's modest answer.
He liked that tense vibrating voice; it rang
truemas steel rings on steel. And the man himself
might have been framed on steel springs, fine-tem-
pered, restlessly alive. His body was slim and
straight, very tall. The hand Mr. Guelpa had held
for an instant in his own, was long and cool, smooth
of skin, with not much grip in it. What was most
striking was the head, high-domed, covered with
thick, brown disorderly hair. The narrow sallow
face was cleanly shaved. In comparison with that


58
MR. GUELPA
huge forehead it seemed too small, with its thin nose
and pointed chin; but it was a mobile face, fine-
drawn and keen.
They were seated now, and Professor Ledsky
leaned forward out of the old-fashioned chair, his
restless hands always playing with each other.
"There are many things I must ask you, Mr.
Guelpa, about your work, about the new men in
your branch of science-I have been corresponding
with Oloriz of Madrid, and Bayle. He is still in
Paris, Bayle?”
He talked rapidly, but when he asked a question
he always paused, waiting politely for a reply.
"Your laboratory work,” he explained, "touches
ours—that is why I am interested in your experi-
ments. All sciences are one."
“Anyway they touch elbows."
"They flow into each other-criminology, bi-
ology, psychology, all the sciences, physical or men-
tal, flow into each other." Mr. Guelpa assented al-
though the theory did not seem worth getting
excited about; but then, he reflected, Professor Led-
sky was that sort of a man. Thought excited him.
Especially his own thoughts.
“Yes, all one. It doesn't matter where you
start you have to make the circuit of all human
knowledge,” the professor spoke urgently, as though
he were trying to convince an audience, or perhaps
merely impress the quiet little man in front of him.
“We begin with a drop of mammalian blood and for


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
59
you it is the point of departure for a crime. For
me it is the man himself-the whole man; his pro-
cesses, his diseases, his ancestors are all in that drop
of blood. An ancestor, sending down the heredity
of madness or lust. A parasite of disease. So you
have the crime and I have the man. We went by
different paths to meet again. And so the sciences
are coming together and, soon, they will be one.
Then-a terrible thing will happen—"
Professor Ledsky's eyes burned in the hollows
under his shaggy brows and his hands clenched;
after a pause he added:
“Man will know nature, yes, but the terrible
thing is he will know man! Science will lay him
open, hunting out his subconscious thoughts, run-
ning down his dreams—all lying open! Why not?
We shall know everything. The secrets of nature
and the secrets of man. And then—"
"And then," quietly interposed Mr. Guelpa, "life
will be very dull, will it not? If there is nothing
more to find out we shall lose our jobs."
Professor Ledsky got off his high-horse. He
laughed and ruffled his thick hair.
"My hobby," he explained, “but I don't often
talk about it."
"I am glad you did. It is a mark of confi-
dence,” Mr. Guelpa replied; he could understand
that there were few to whom the great scientist
could let himself go like that; and, after all, science
makes cronies of men. Talk was easy now. Hav.


60
MR. GUELPA
ing blown off his nervous enthusiasm Professor
Ledsky showed his courteous interest not only in
Mr. Guelpa but in his achievements. How long
would he remain in New York? Whom had he al-
ready met? They must see more of each other. In
a social way, too, he hoped. Their wives must meet.
Why not a visit? Professor Ledsky had opened his
country house up the Hudson for the winter hol-
idays. Yes, the Guelpas must visit him. If the
ghost of old Lacassagne who had brought them to-
gether were still prowling, ha! that would please
him. A visit then-a long week-end. A world of
snow up there. An old stone house on a hill and a
wood fire roaring up the chimney. Yes, and he had
a wonderful laboratory out there and they could ex-
periment as well as talk.
"I need a change," Professor Ledsky said, "a
rest from lectures, consultations, patients. You will
come? That is promised. Though of course I shall
have to consult my wife before setting the exact
time."
Mr. Guelpa accepted Professor Ledsky's cordial
invitation with becoming thanks. “You are really
very kind," he said.
“My car will run you up."
“I am sure my wife and my step-daughter—"
“We shall make them happy," interrupted Pro-
fessor Ledsky. “And now your own new book, Mr.
Guelpa ?"
"My little study on graphometry? Ah, it was


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
61
you Americans who opened the way. Persifer Fra-
zer, Osborn, eh? But perhaps I shall add some-
thing," Mr. Guelpa remarked modestly—not that he
disesteemed his work, but it was not his hour for
crowing, “perhaps I can add a little to what they
have done. You are interested? Oh, not in the de-
tail, I know, but the subject would fit into your
theory of the unity of the sciences. Matter is
fluidic, changing, shifting, dancing about from one
state to another. But the man! He remains him-
self. Three months before his birth he has on hands
and feet the lines he will die with, unchanged. And
his gestures never alter. The first step a child takes
prefigures the walk of the man. And writing ?”
The little man chuckled with self-approval.
"Writing is a gesture. And this gesture is con-
'ditioned in its extent, its direction, its force, by fac-
tors that remain from birth to death. Eh? Phys-
ical and anatomic factors. You know all that.
Bone, muscle-leverage, nerve-transmission, always
the same for that boy who grows to be a man. And
what I prove is that the gesture of writing, for any
given person, does not change; it is constant, al-
ways to be distinguished from a similar gesture
made by any one else. Forgery, false writing-
they can not be hid. This bit of science will help to
lay the man open, eh, as you said ?”
“That is very interesting,” Professor Ledsky re-
marked thoughtfully, "it will take you far.”
“You see? 'And I have many examples. A


62
MR. GUELPA
great deal of data. And already since my arrival
comes a new case. Two writings, apparently as un-
like each other as the baby's first step and the man's
walk. But the two gestures were made by the same
hand."
Professor Ledsky showed polite interest.
“I should like to see that,” he remarked.
"I shall have photographs. I will show you the
grammatic parallels that prove it. And it is an ex-
tremely interesting case. You know Mr. Faynis,
the lawyer?"
"By repute."
"He put it before me. It is a big insurance swin-
dle—I do not care about that part of it. But the
handwriting, ah! that does interest me. And I want
to see the woman."
“Then it is a woman who has swindled them?”
Professor Ledsky was always politely attentive.
“It is her handwriting I have to go on, but, of
course, I know nothing about the swindle. She is
what attracts me—that gesture of hers. So differ-
ent and yet the same. It was that gesture that got
the money from an insurance in Los Angeles five
years ago. Now with the same gesture she claims
fifty thousand from the Great Orient. She did not
know the gesture was the same! But I know."
“Remarkable!”
“Yes, and I must see that woman. The case is
just beginning, but Mr. Faynis has arranged for me
to meet her. She is young, they say. A lady. Not


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
63
at all the accepted criminal type—but you and I
know what rubbish that type theory is! Of course
her appearance—her personality-means something.
But it is her psychology,”
"Yes!” his visitor exclaimed abruptly, "that is
what you would want. The psychology of the wo-
man. And the handwriting—the gesture. Remark-
able! This will help your book.”
"It may be a very famous case,” Mr. Guelpa
suggested.
“Quite true! The better for your book.” With
this, Professor Ledsky got up suddenly; it was as
though his steel-spring nerves had jerked him out
of the chair.
“I am delighted! This has been a visit I shall
not forget. Perhaps I have made a new friend?
Yes. You will present my compliments to your
family? A great pleasure.'
Once more science shook hands with science,
and Professor Ledsky, swift and urgent, went his
way. Mr. Guelpa remained standing near the door,
a whimsical expression, half admiration, half won-
derment, on his face. His unspoken comment was:
“A great man, that; but he is over-worked; he has
too much brain to be quiet with.” After a pause he
added : “And he ought to get his hair cut. He is
carrying too much weight.”
He had no more than rolled a cigarette and
lighted it, when John Faynis came in.
“I'm on my way up-town," Faynis said, after


64
MR. GUELPA
the howdy-dos were disposed of, “and I dropped off
to bring you a bit of news.”
“Now what would that be? Sit down and
smoke. Perhaps you have heard from the man who
went out to the town where Mrs. Benton was born."
“You've guessed it, Mr. Guelpa."
"Was it a guess? I never guess. And you have
learned that the story she told of her life was not
quite true, eh?”
“True? It is a tissue of lies from start to fin-
ish. Not a word of truth. Birth and parents and
the dear old aunt and the little fortune-all a lie.”
“Tiens, tiens!" Mr. Guelpa exclaimed, indulging
in his favorite expression which means nothing and
means, at times so much, "all false? But no human
story—nothing a human being relates
is ever
wholly false, or wholly true. Behind every lie the
truth always lurks in waiting. A life is like a coin-
the truth is on the other side, the unseen side of it.
A false statement like the one you have discovered
is—it can not help being--an index of what she
wanted to hide.
"Eh? but that can wait, Mr. Faynis, but Mrs.
Benton"
"Why did she take such a risk? Any fool would
have known we could run that lie to earth."
“But would you have done so, if you had not had
a good reason for suspicion ? No, it would have
passed well enough. And Mr. Benton? You know
all about him?"


"EVIDENCE POURS IN”
65
“His references seemed all right. So was the
physician's report-a very healthy young man.
Good for a long life, bar accident."
“Accidents will happen," Mr. Guelpa interposed,
"especially in a business like that of the Great Ori-
ent. And when may I see Mrs. Benton?”
“Whenever you think best. She is at her home.
Indeed we are having the house watched. Steeger
advised it.”
“Merely a precaution? Surely she can not sus-
pect that you think there is anything wrong? That
you have begun this investigation ?"
“No, that's impossible. We have kept every-
thing very quiet. She is merely waiting until her
claim has passed through the ordinary routine. We
are going to have Mr. Ringgold call on her, ostensi-
bly about the policy, and all that, there are a few.
things we require to know. You might go with
him. Your opinion of that woman—"
“Ah, the woman! Why will women do such
things?” Mr. Guelpa asked drearily. “But they do.
And she will find it does not pay. In fact Mr. Fay-
nis murder rarely does pay."
"Murder!" Faynis cried.
"Tiens! You seem surprised! What did you
think it was? She had to have a corpse. Of course
Benton had to be the corpse. That is why he was
murdered. Logical, is it not? Poison, I presume.
Mr. Faynis, your people had better have that dead
body exhumed.”


66
MR. GUELPA
Faynis had been staring at the little man who
sat there smiling, nodding, talking of this horror in
a quiet easy voice, colorless as ether. At last he
slapped his hand down on his knee.
"That body was burned,” he exclaimed.
“Ah, the dead man was cremated! And there
is no way of making him speak,” Mr. Guelpa's face
was lit with satisfaction. "Burned and the ashes, of
course, scattered to the wind or water. Splendid!
The evidence is literally pouring in-pouring in—"
"Evidence! But we've lost the one thing that
could have proved that murder was done,” Faynis
interjected.
“No, no," and Mr. Guelpa repeated the words as
though he loved them, “it is just beginning to pour
in-pour in-"


CHAPTER VI
THE RECORD IN THE DUST
"A
, ,
ND at first you were not quite sure, Mr.
Ringgold
"Not sure at all. It was an impression. And
then gradually I remembered, Mr. Guelpa, and had
no doubt at all. Certainly I had seen her before.”
They were walking side by side toward the
street of the Narrow House in affable talk. Mr.
Guelpa, exercising the charm that was his when he
wanted to use it, had won Mr. Ringgold's confi-
dence and a little of his admiration. There was a
thin streak of romance in the methodic man of busi-
ness and it vibrated to Mr. Guelpa's expert massage.
“And was this Mrs. Benton dressed like the wo-
man you saw in Los Angeles? Did that help?”
"Well, of course she was in black, but it was the
veil drawn over the face when she raised it—yes,
that brought it back. And she was pale.”
“Both of them? But that means nothing be-
cause it may mean anything. It may mean fear, or
guilt, or weariness—anything. She was dressed
quite in the mode?"
"Mrs. Benton? Well when she came to the
67.


68
MR. GUELPA
Great Orient she was dressed like any one else in
similar circumstances. I particularly remember the
veil, and her fur pulled up round her throat and the
close black dress."
"Did she sit down ?"
“Of course, Mr. Guelpa."
"And she sat erect? Both feet on the floor?"
Mr. Ringgold emitted a short whinny of
laughter.
“I was looking at her face,” he replied.
"And that was calm ?"
“Calm and steady and-pale.”
"I will tell you something, Mr. Ringgold. An
anecdote. Once I was studying a lady. It was in
Paris. She was, I was sure, a murder-lady, but
there was only suspicion to go on. And, as the way ,
is with us, she had been confronted with the corpse.
At first she showed the natural emotion of a woman
brought suddenly in front of a dead body-quite
horrible, just as it had fallen. Then she sat there,
calm, mistress of herself. Her denials were nats
ural; they had all the steadiness of innocence. So I
did not study her face. I looked at her foot. She
had crossed one leg over the other and at each beat
of the heart, the foot she had raised moved. Not
regularly. And merely by watching the foot I could
read the wild variations of her pulse, as though I
had had my finger on her wrist. Those little move
ments of the foot, showed that her pulse was throb-
bing and jerking with terror, horror, fierce emos


70
MR. GUELPA
“She will see me," persisted Mr. Ringgold;
“that order was not for me.'
“Well, I have made an explanation,” Nakki con-
tinued pleasantly; "Mrs. Benton has gone away.
Good-by.”
He started to close the door, but Mr. Guelpa
was leaning against it and it did not move.
“One moment? When will she return?" Mr.
Guelpa asked; and Nakki opened wider the door to
look at him.
He saw a mysterious little man in a fur coat and
a round hat, saw, too, above the brilliant necktie, a
grim face and the coldest eyes he had ever con-
fronted. His mood dropped to defensive sulkiness.
"I do not know," he declared. "Everybody
gone. Mr. Benton, well, he is dead. Mrs. Benton
she has gone away."
“When will she return?” Ringgold inquired.
“I do not know.” It was all he had to say; the
night before he had called a taxi and she had driven
away; and Nakki tried to close the door.
“Careful, boy!" Mr. Guelpa snapped out.
He understood the Oriental mind and he knew
the Oriental mind dipped its flag, always, to au-
thority; but only when that authority was mys-
terious, alien, unfamiliar.
“The insurance," he whispered, lowering his
voice; "come on, Mr. Ringgold. We shall see the
house. Here, boy, take that card from Mr. Ring-
gold and keep it carefully.”


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
71
Nakki took it as though it were a talisman; he
was still studying it when they brushed past him.
"Is this the reception-room?"
It was the parlor and Mr. Guelpa glanced
round it curiously. It was a room at once rich and
tawdry, and over the gaudy furniture lay a film of
dust. Mr. Guelpa stood in the doorway. His in-
spection was slow and unhurried. The shade was
half drawn and near the window was an easy chair,
a book lying upon it.
“My book," Nakki volunteered the remark, "I
am a student. Also housekeeper.”
“Go back to your book, then,” Mr. Guelpa said;
"if we need you we shall let you know.”
Nakki went without hesitation. His yellow face
showed neither curiosity nor concern.
He picked
up the book and sat down, blandly indifferent to the
doings of that mysterious white authority.
Mr. Guelpa walked the length of the hall and
glanced down the stairs leading to the basement, be-
fore he returned to Mr. Ringgold, who was wait-
ing near the door.
"We shall go up-stairs first,” he said, "to the
sleeping-rooms."
The front bedroom was where the man had died.
It was in order, save for the bed, stripped naked of
linen. Along one wall was a divan where a watcher
might have lain to be within call of the patient.
There were chairs, a night-table, a chiffonier, a
large rug-nothing else.


72
MR. GUELPA
The room had been cleansed, disinfected, deo-
dorized—the ghost of the dead and the imprints of
the living had been blown out of it.
Mr. Guelpa went to the window and drew aside
the silk curtain. The street was peopled with pass-
ers-by.
“You know that your company is having this
house watched ?” he inquired of Mr. Ringgold.
“Yes, I know.”
“But do you happen to know the men who have
been put on to watch the house ?"
"No," Mr. Ringgold answered, "that would be
out of my department.”
“H'm, then you couldn't pick them out in that
crowd. Of course not. And they seem to have let
her slip through their fingers," Mr. Guelpa ob-
served; he showed no particular concern; and his
interest in the room seemed to be slight.
He went to Mrs. Benton's room. It was a large
bedroom at the back, the only entrance to it being
from the hall. It faced south and through the two
windows light streamed in cheerily. Here, too,
tawdriness and gaudiness were jumbled together,
but there was comfort in the easy chairs, the ample
bed and the chaise-longue. And there were, too,
the things a woman wants, mirrors, a dressing-
table, frank concessions to the feminine.
It was essentially a woman's room but wrecked
with disorder. A silken eider-down was pulled up
over the humped bed. Garments lay here and there


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
73
as though they had been tossed by a heedless hand,
Towels trailed in the adjoining bathroom. Thc
door of the big closet opened on cast-off slippers,
shoes, tumbled gowns. It was as though the for-
mer occupant had swept out of the room, tornado-
wise, leaving behind a tumult of disorder. Haste !
Flight!
But in that hurried departure so much had been
left behind—not only the garments that clung
round the woman's body had been left and not alone
the bed that had drunk in her sleep. She had left
more than that in her flight. A shadowy part of
herself remained. Impalpable, but real.
It was Mr. Guelpa's theory that the person who
occupies a room imprints upon it a shadowy self,
and records there not only the physical habitudes,
but the habits of thought and emotions. The vi-
bration of those multiple groups of cells that made
up the woman who had lived in this room were
still pulsating in the ether-still persisting And
Mr. Guelpa knew that the sunlight streaming in had
printed upon the walls thronging photographs of
Mrs. Benton; they were there; they were too faint
to make an impression on the retina of the eye; but
sooner or later the camera would be able to cap,
ture them-So fast science advances.
Faint and vague. And yet to Mr. Guelpa's
highly trained faculties of perception a ghost of
the living woman was still in the room. He could
perceive it moving slowly, languidly, to and fro, or


74
MR. GUELPA
lying there in the chaise-longue infinitely quiet, the
book fallen from the lazy hand, as she stared, per-
haps, at her reflection in the tall mirror on the op-
posite wall. That was the way he seemed to vis-
ualize her. Intuition? Imagination ? He would
have said that his alert senses, disciplined for many
years, had captured the impression and presented
it to him complete. Scores of tiny impressions,
caught by the senses, revealed her-recreated her.
She had left behind her the almost impercetible hu-
man odor that only a hound could pick up. Her
habitual movements were recorded everywhere-
that long chair with the lazy pillows and the fallen
book and the mirror. The reading-lamp over the
bed was also confirmatory. Mr. Guelpa could see
her stretched out there, reading or staring into that
other mirror over the dressing-table; a third one
hung above the mantelpiece. A dainty lady. A
quiet room, its message one of safe repose.
What wild storm of terror had swept through
it? What tumult of haste had torn her out of its
quietude ? Leaving behind them a chaos of dis-
order.
Mr. Guelpa did not touch the scattered gar-
ments. At first he touched nothing, merely stand-
ing, his little hat in his hand-after all, it was a
lady's room-erect, every sense seemingly alert.
He turned to the motionless Mr. Ringgold, who,
waiting in the doorway, had respected his long
silence,


76
MR. GUELPA
think one could trace a woman around the world
by what comes off her head. And one little hair!
She does not know that every hair of her head is
numbered—like a convict--for purposes of identi-
fication, eh?"
In the overturned scrap-basket, near the dress-
ing-table, were no papers or scraps of papers, but
clinging to the bottom of it were combings of a wo-
man's hair-a twisted bunch of glossy dark brown
hair. And with this brown hair were other hairs
of a pale sand-color. It was mystifying. And
then Mr. Guelpa remembered that there had been
two women in that houseMrs. Benton and Nurse
McCune. There was more of the sand-colored hair
in the brush, tangled there. It was long and
strong; a faded odor of perfume could be discerned.
“A delicate lady you told me, Mr. Ringgold,
rather fine? I wonder whether you are a good
judge. The hair is rather robust. Would it be
that of the nurse?”
“No, that is Mrs. Benton's hair," returned Mr.
Ringgold, looking at it closely, “I remember the
color perfectly.”
“Odd,” retorted Mr. Guelpa, “but her fingers
will tell. The lady who lived in this room is be-
ginning to recreate herself for me. Hand, hair
and foot ?"
He stooped and picked up one of the shoes scat-
tered about. It was quite new and had not yet ac-
quired the shape of the foot; nor had the other


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
77
shoes and slippers. The knitted bed-slippers were
shapeless.
“So far as we are concerned,” observed Mr.
Guelpa, "the lady is footless. Unless"
What he sorted out of the cast-off garments was
a rumpled silk stocking; it was black. He laid it
on the table near the book and the bunches of hair,
“Mr. Guelpa"
George Ringgold at last found voice. He had
been watching in his short-sighted way the little
man, as he ferreted about; but his hearing was bet-
ter than his sight.
“That clock's still going," he remarked know-
ingly.
“Thank you," said Mr. Guelpa, “it is on the
hour."
He glanced at the little gilt clock, ticking away
on the mantelpiece. It had the old wooden mantel-
piece to itself. And it was a very ordinary clock,
but Mr. Guelpa walked toward it, slowly, whisper-
ing his eternal "Tiens, tiens!"
A little man, his head was still higher than the
mantel-shelf. That was old, discolored, abraded
by the wear of years, rough, too, with neglect.
Head sidewise Mr. Guelpa swept the surface with
his intent beady eyes. Then again his “Tiens, tiens!"
"Dust," he remarked, "old dust. And dust,
Mr. Ringgold, is the débris of matter. Now when
matter touches matter it leaves its mark, indelible.
And you see there are marks in the dust, eh?"


78
MR. GUELPA
Mr. Ringgold peered at the wooden shelf.
"But marks of what?" Mr. Guelpa continued,
expanding into the talkativeness that took him now
and then, for he found it hard always to bottle up
that wide general knowledge of his. "You see, the
dust has settled there day after day-layer upon
layer. So the marks vary in distinctness, but they
all are imprints of the same thing. And that, my
dear Mr. Ringgold, is cloth. Cloth! The chemist
can tell you of what that sifting New York dust is
composed, but I! I can tell you what marked it.
They dug up in Pompeii a slab of dead lava and on
it were the marks of the toga of some one who per-
ished when the city was overwhelmed—the weave
of the linen, its web and woof, had remained there
for thousands of years. You could have identified
that toga for no two pieces of woven cloth are ab-
solutely the same—always there are tiny irregular-
ities individual as the hair on your head. Each
thread is numbered. Under the microscope its real
individuality comes out. Now this is a heavy
weave, you see. Not silk, not cotton, not linen. It
is wool.
"Tiens!” and Mr. Guelpa stood back from his
inspection of the mantelpiece and faced the insur-
ance man, who was in over his depth.
"Shall I tell you? The man who came here,
again and again, leaning always his elbow there on
the mantelpiece. You may want to know him.
Shall I describe him? Perhaps I may be wrong,


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
79
for you never know the immense number of people
who are just the opposite of what they seem to be.
But this man? Medium height. You see how his
arm lay. And not thin, a well-fed man, both flesh
and bone were behind that imprint. He drooped
there one elbow on the mantelpiece, moving very
little. There is your man, dressed in a rather old
gray coat, a shabby man-either from lack of means
or carelessness. Calm and slow. He makes no im-
patient movements. Do you see him?"
Mr. Ringgold shook a perplexed head.
"No? Not even the tweed coat? But there he
stood, drooping there, nearly always in the same
place, because so he faced the woman who lay on
the lounge-chair. Ah!"
Mr. Guelpa chuckled his triumph.
"I do not understand"
“No? The mark of a coat sleeve in the dust. A
tweed coat, worn threadbare at the elbow. And the
color? I got it from that tiny tuft of cloth caught
in yonder splintered edge of the wooden shelf!
And this slumbrous man who wore it would not be
Mr. Benton? He was a big red man, you told me,
an athlete. A man who stood up. But I should
like to see his clothes. His bedroom unfortunately
has been cleaned out-stripped. But here, in this
closet there might be something." And Mr. Guelpa
stuck his head in the closet, looked about and went
gingerly in. Deftly, one after the other, he picked
up the gowns-


8
MR. GUELPA
“What the devil are you doing here!" a big
voice crashed. And the door of the bedroom was
thrown open. Mr. Ringgold turned with a start to
face a bearded man in a huge coat, "and who the
devil is that?”
The big man jerked his head toward the placid
Mr. Guelpa, who emerged from the closet, a black
gown trailing from his hand, a benign smile on his
face, his eye-glasses cocked inquiringly.
“And where is my patient?”
“Ah, of course, it is Doctor Hamilton! Permit
me, Doctor, we are from the insurance company,"
Mr. Guelpa said.
“So Nakki told me. He showed me your card.
And now where is Mrs. Benton?"
“That is Mr. Ringgold whose card you saw. I?
Never mind. We called to see Mrs. Benton, and"
"Did you expect to find her in the clothes-clos-
et?” Doctor Hamilton inquired grimly.
“No, Doctor, no," replied Mr. Guelpa softly,
"and I regret to say she is not there. I wish I knew
where she was because I particularly wish to see
her. Perhaps you can tell us?"
"I left her in that bed yesterday. She was ill,
very ill. She should be there now. Damn it, what
has been going on here?" the doctor suddenly de-
manded.
“Your patient, Doctor, has mysteriously dis-
appeared. She went away last night. Did not
Nakki tell you?”


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
81
in my line.
"He did not. He sent me up here. And so
Mrs. Benton went away last night! Why?"
"That is what I intend to find out,” Mr. Guelpa
answered a trifle sharply, for he did not like a hec-
toring tone, "and I hope you will help me. I am
Mr. Guelpa."
Doctor Hamilton bowed; he was quiet enough
now; he lowered his voice to a decent level of re-
spect: “Of course I have heard of you. We have
to keep in touch with your work although it is not
line. And I knew you were in New York,
but what the deuce—if you don't mind—are you
doing in this thing? The Great Orient must be
mighty keen on trying to get out of paying their
just dues if they've dragged you into it.”
“That is a queer compliment, Doctor. Will you
sit down ?"
Mr. Guelpa laid aside the black gown and took
a chair himself.
“I will tell you what I am doing in this house
and in that clothes-closet! Well? It is merely this.
Naturally, before paying the claim, the Great Ori-
ent looked into the case. There was Mrs. Benton,
yes. But her antecedents."
“Might find a way out of paying! Well, my
policy is in the Great Orient, but I can take it
out-
"Perhaps. Mr. Ringgold can tell you. But,
Doctor Hamilton, you will permit me a question ?
You have known Mrs. Benton some time?"


82
MR. GUELPA
"I'll answer that. Thank God, I have. I've
known her in a way-ever since they took this
house."
“And she has talked to you of her earlier life?”
“Why shouldn't she? At least I know about
her earlier life. She talked to Nurse McCune and
I have it from her."
“Ah, so you know! Her birthplace in Ohio.
The father and mother who died. The kind aunt
who took care of her. The little fortune."
"Well, what of it?"
"Perhaps, Doctor Hamilton, it will surprise you
to hear that every word of that story-every word,”
Mr. Guelpa shot the statement at him, "is a lie!"
"A lie!”
"False from beginning to end. A foolish in-
vention. A lie. That is why I am here, since you
wish to know, sir."
Doctor Hamilton's chivalry stirred in him; his
thoughts of his patient—the gentle pale woman he
had watched over-were more than kind; but he
was broken to worldly wisdom and he did not lift
his voice in her defense, save to say: "It may be a
mistake."
"There is no mistake. Did she hear of that in-
vestigation? We kept it very still. Did something
else frighten her? In any case, Doctor Hamilton,
your patient has disappeared—into the night.”
“Unquestionably you've frightened her. She is
a weak, timid little woman. She was ill—the nurse


84
MR. GUELPA
>>
"On the contrary it was Benton, himself, who
wished it. I never heard Mrs. Benton speak of it.
She was quite overcome by his death. She left
everything to Nurse McCune and me. Even be-
fore his illness took a serious turn Benton spoke of
it-often. He had theories about being buried
alive. You know the kind of person who thinks we
doctors are such fools we do not know even how to
make sure a man is dead. The cremation was Ben-
ton's own idea. His request.”
"Did Mrs. Benton hear him talk of it?"
"She may have. She was almost always with
him—loyal to the end, I wish to tell you.
And
your damnable theory that she killed her husband,
for I see what you are driving at, is an outrage to
humanity," Doctor Hamilton protested in his old
fiery way.
"Perhaps? And her disappearance? The
trumped-up story of her early life! What do you
make of all that, Doctor ?"
The big doctor heaved himself impatiently out
of his chair:
“What should I know about that,” he retorted
curtly, and with a “Good day to you," strode in-
dignantly out of the room. The street door had
barely closed behind him when Nakki, the Japanese
boy, entered and approached Mr. Ringgold, holding
out a card.
“Your card?” he inquired blandly.
"Yes."


THE RECORD IN THE DUST
85
"Then the gentleman down-stairs, outside the
door, wishes to be admitted, and to speak to you,
if you please.
“Who is he?"
Nakki's face announced his ignorance.
"I would suggest you have him brought up into
Mr. Benton's room," Mr. Guelpa put in, “I want
this room locked and sealed so I may get the im-
pressions I desire to make and I will do it myself,
but now I shall go with you. An unknown man al-
ways interests me. He may be any one.”
In the naked room where Richard Benton had
died, Nakki brought to them a commonplace-look-
ing man, who held in one hand a lighted cigar. He
removed his hat and nodded.
“Mr. Ringgold? Yes, I've seen you. They
sent me up here from the office. They wanted you
to know. Is he all right?" he wagged his head to
ward Mr. Guelpa.
“Certainly. This is Mr. Guelpa. Say what you
have to say."
“I'm Grogan from the Agency. Your woman
is missing? Beat it. Got away?”
“Yes, she has disappeared. Were you watching
this house?"
“Me and my partner, Tim Lear. She got away
all right. Last night it was. Well, so did I and so
did Tim Lear. It was a long chase and we nearly
lost her more than once. Taxi, street-car, then
taxi, trolley-car and then an automobile that was


86
MR. GUELPA
waiting for her—but that won't interest you. Any-
way. we ran her down. An' Tim is camped on her.
And I'm sending up more men. She'll stay where
she is till you want her. Like to know where she
is?” And Grogan grinned at the two men in front
of him.
Mr. Guelpa showed no particular interest in the
query. Ringgold waited expectantly.
"Up the Hudson. Westchester County-nice
little country place. That's where she's camped
this minute. She made it last night."
“You know the house?"
"Sure, it belongs to one of our big guns. He's
some expert, I tell you. One of these insanity ex-
perts. We've had him in many a case and the wo-
man is tucked away in his house."
"In whose house?” demanded Ringgold.
“Professor Ledsky's.”
"Ledsky!”
This exclamation came from the agitated Mr.
Ringgold. "Ledsky!”
“One of his dizzy patients, perhaps !"
The insurance man turned to Mr. Guelpa.
"What do you think, sir?”
Mr. Guelpa smiled and said-nothing at all.


CHAPTER VII
THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
AS
S DOCTOR HAMILTON went down the
steps of the Narrow House into the street two
thoughts were busy in his mind-the woman he had
held fainting in his arms during the ride back from
that burial (in fire and oblivion) of Richard Ben-
ton's body; the other nagging thought was of the
death certificate he had signed; damn it, were they
going to make trouble about that? Thinking of
the certificate his mind was in a cursing mood; it
had been a sound certificate-heart failure-that's
the way these big athletes, when they take to drink
and laziness, generally crumple up! No doubt of
that. The man died of heart failure as every one
does; and in his case the cause of it, as he had
stated, was angina. Acute angina striking at him
of a sudden. The symptoms all confirmed his
diagnosis.
And now these men talked of foul play. Good
God! To what lengths wouldn't that insurance
company go to save their dirty dollars? It would
be a pleasant thing, for him, to be pilloried on the
witness-stand and torn apart by, a lot of hireling
87


88
MR. GUELPA
experts and savage lawyers. There would not be
much of his reputation left, when they were done
with him. And damn that little Guelpa and his
malicious curiosity. How dared the fellow shake
a finger at him, with his infernal “What did he die
of, eh?” Gloomily Doctor Hamilton told himself
he wished to the deuce he had insisted on an
autopsy.
But there was the little woman!
Surely there was no real reason for his going
against her. And heaven knows life was hard
enough on her and all other women. Now, as he
walked heavily toward his office, Doctor Hamilton
put aside his own predicament and his thoughts ran,
undivided, toward Mrs. Benton. A quiet pretty
little thing; gentle and oblivious of herself-just
brooding over that brute of a husband with a kind
of loyal watchfulness. By jove! she hardly. slept
during those last weeks. Unselfish, dutiful and in
spite of her loss of sleep, her sense of duty held
She was always there, ready to help,
controlling herself, keeping a sort of pathetic calm-
steadiness-
A brave little woman, Doctor Hamilton re-
flected, poor little thing. No wonder she had
disappeared, now these wolves of greed and suspi-
cion were yelping after her. She had stood about
all she could; and she had a perfect right to go off
for a rest. He was sorry Nurse McCune was not
with her. She had been called to another case,
her up.
1


THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
89
Mrs. Benton needed friends nowneeded not only
Mrs. McCune, that invaluable person, but as well,
Doctor Hamilton himself. Surely Mrs. Benton
would let him know.
His offices and bachelor home were on the first
floor of an apartment-house in Tenth Street. He
let himself in and went to the table in the reception-
room which faced the street. The attendant had
left on his desk the memoranda for the day and his
telephone calls. They were numerous enough but
none of them pressed. Doctor Hamilton was one
of those faithful family physicians whose round of
life lay amid friends of long standing. In the dozen
years or so of his practise he had seen the children
grow up-dragged through infantile maladies
had welcomed scores of babies and soothed many a
death-bed at which old age or illness struck. His
rather boisterous manner covered but did not con-
ceal his fiery zeal for his profession and the tender-
ness within him. His life had been without upsets
and without tragedy-save for his daily battle
against death.
And now tragic things were tugging at him:
that investigation into Benton's death and the cer-
tificate he had granted: and then that terrified
woman who had clutched at him, in her panic fear,
and collapsed in his arms.
That little woman!
Why that sudden terror?
And why had she fled? Guilty? One might as


90
MR. GUELPA
1
1
well accuse a white lily of murder. Well, he would
do all he possibly could for her.
He had been pacing the room to and fro, and
halted now at the window, looking out into the
street. A girl was standing there gazing up at the
sign which announced his name and profession.
When she caught his eye she nodded and smiled
and then rang his bell. He opened the door him-
self and stepped aside to permit her to enter the
reception-room.
"You are a doctor, ain't you? Then I guess
you'll do,” she said, and laughed as though they
were old friends glad to see each other. Her laugh
ran part way up the scale and then down again; it
was charming and her own. She had round legs
and carmine lips and brown smudgy eyes. More-
over her face was nicely painted. A round red hat
was crowded down over her ears. She wore a long
mouse-colored coat, with fur cuffs and collar.
When she threw it open the world saw, with pleas-
ure, lengthy, nude stockings, plumply filled, and
low black shoes with buckles. She gave the impres-
sion that it was sheer pride that kept her from
chewing gum.
She threw herself into an easy
chair.
Doctor Hamilton was not interested.
This was not the sort of patient who usually
entered his reception-room.
"Gee! I'm all in, Doc,” she said, “I'll say it!
And at that I don't see where I get off.”
1


THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
91
"If you would kindly explain—"
"I'm taking a long shot but I thought you might
know," the young woman went on with easy famil-
iarity. “I'm Miss Glenn-Kittie, you know—and
I'm looking for a friend."
"I'm afraid you have come to the wrong house."
'And Doctor Hamilton's professional urbanity left
him.
"I get you,” she replied calmly, "but you've got
me wrong. The friend I'm looking for ain't you.”
"Well, what then?”
"It's Pete. Mr. Barling."
Miss Glenn opened her red bag and took out a
telegram.
“This is from Pete, asking me to come on at
once,” she explained, "for he says he is dangerously
illvery sick—and I beat it out of Hollywood at a
moment's notice, six days ago. But find him? Say,
they've got the address balled up. If it ain't the
wrong street it's the wrong number and I've been
asking up and down this block, until I saw your
kind of a face in the window-and here I am.
You're a doctor all right. If he's in bad like that
he'd have a doctor. Why not you, since you live
in the neighborhood. Do you know him? Pete.
Mr. Peter Barling. He's a hard man not to see.
Well?”
Miss Glenn was an unexpected and incoherent
girl, but Doctor Hamilton understood what she
wanted and unbent. Indeed, he thought if she had


92
MR. GUELPA
1
1
a washed face and combed hair she would have ap-
peared as a rather attractive girl, sincerely interested
in this man who lay somewhere at the wrong
number or in the wrong street-dangerously ill;
and whose appealing telegram had pulled her across
the continent. Under her crude exterior, a staunch
little heart must be beating.
“Let me see the telegram," he said. "Perhaps
I can help you, though I myself have no patient
by that name."
“He can't be blinking out,” she exclaimed, with
a sudden catch in her voice, “why, my Pete's as
strong as a bull.
Some man! But he must be
mighty sick or he wouldn't have sent that S. O. S.
He knows I ain't a millionaire. But we're going
to be, both of us—it's all we've been waiting for
and he is just pulling off the big thing. Why, his
letters have been full of it. And then comes this
telegram," she went on in her haphazard way:
“Pete all in and waiting for me. Wanting me.
That's my hunch! Hell's bells !” suddenly cried
Miss Glenn, bringing both feet down on the floor.
There were real tears in her eyes and her lower lip
trembled.
“Now wait a bit," Doctor Hamilton leaned for-
ward and patted her shoulder sympathetically, “it
shouldn't be difficult to get this unsnarled. Where
have these letters you speak of been sent from?
What address had you?"
"General Post-Office for the last year. You see


THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
93
he was traveling about a good bit—always on the
go, in fact, and so there was no regular address."
"I see. But some of Mr. Barling's friends, now,
couldn't they help you out? There's nothing to cry
about, is there?"
But she didn't know his friends here in New
York. Of course out in Los Angeles—but Pete
had been gone from there for a long time and you
know how people mill round and fade out; and as
for New York, well, she was some hick; anyway,
Pete had been knocking about this year more than
ever before New Orleans--Cuba-any old where
following the races. Perhaps he had pulled off a
big thing like that. The telegram looked like it,
didn't it? And now he was lying up somewhere,
all in--where?
The girl kept on pouring out her incoherent
story, her mood shifting from gloom to anger; and
as she talked Doctor Hamilton's eyes kindled with
expectant interest.
Across her smoke-screen of
words he began to see the figure of a man, a big
man—"not as big as you”—but big, athletic, red,
who had been following the races; Cuba-
And that same figure of a man he seemed to
see lying dead in a bed in a Narrow House
What did it mean?
A coincidence ?
Doctor Hamilton was not a suspicious man by
nature. He took life in a hale-fellow way, accept-
ing it for what it appeared to be; but he had just


94
MR. GUELPA
1
come from a house where busybodies were ferret-
ing about, digging at a corpse, hunting a poor little
woman, laying pits for her—perhaps for him and
what there was of suspicion in his frank mind woke
sharply. Those ferrets might be going to prove
that Richard Benton was this Pete the girl was de-
scribing so graphically. But why? What would
that mean? At all events it might mean that Miss
Glenn—with her smudgy eyes and Hollywood lips-
was one of the ferrets, playing her part in this
mystery of money and death. His quick suspicion
killed his nascent sympathy.
After all, the girl
might be anything. And this telegram trick that
had got her into his office ?
He squared away from her, his hands thrust
into his pockets.
“That's the best I can do for you, Miss Glenn,
and you are taking my time,” he added grimly.
“I shall say good-by.”
The girl was on her feet in an instant. Her sur-
prise was evident.
“So that's your sort, is it !” she exclaimed angri-
ly. “You do step high! Any charge for this? Be-
cause if there is it's got to be under ninety cents.
That's about my pile."
She laughed scornfully as she went out, swing-
ing the mouse-colored coat and rapping her high-
heeled shoes. From his window Doctor Hamilton
watched her.
Miss Glenn's anger had burned up the tears in


THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
95
her eyes. Doctor Hamilton's abrupt dismissal had
been so unexpected she was still very angry. At
first he had seemed such a decent sort and then of
a sudden he had got the wind up. Kittie muttered
her opinion of him and walked rapidly on. Where
she was going she did not know. She had ex-
hausted every way she could imagine of finding the
address where Peter Barling lay "all in.” At the
telegraph office she had learned nothing; and her
experience with Doctor Hamilton had put off her
plan of questioning the doctors of the neighborhood.
It was a big town and a strange town. No palm-
trees! And the men were up the ladder. No free
and easy friendliness—just those damn grins that
meant the other thing. A ten-dollar-a-day extra in
Hollywood knows. She'd be a fool if she didn't
know. And she knew all of them the long-haired
ones and the short ones who pulled the sentimental
stuff.
Withal she was good, as good a girl as ever
washed out her own handkerchiefs and blouses and
dined, often, on hope or "hot-dogs.” Of course
there was Pete. It was simply impossible to love
Pete and run off the trail. Her love for Pete had
held her, even when he was away and she had to
feed her devotion on scrappy letters and promises
of the good time coming when Pete, at last, should
have pulled off a good big thing. She was rather
surprised herself at her loyalty, for it had not helped
her in her tawdry way of life; but there she was


96
MR. GUELPA
her love for Pete had got into her blood and into
her imagination. He used to pick her up and hold
her at arm's length, while she lay balanced on the
palms of his hands. Not love Pete? And he was
dying, at that moment, it might be, within a few.
yards of her, "all in" and waiting for her and the
comfort of her arms and her mouth,
She was wandering in the streets she had tra-
versed before, ringing bells, inquiring- This was
Ninth Street. She wandered on, gloomily.
Suddenly she paused.
A half block ahead of her she saw three men
come down the steps of a house. One, who
looked like everybody else, crossed the street and
sauntered away. One of the other men raised his
walking-stick and hailed a passing taxi. He was a
queer dick, Miss Glenn thought, with his little
round black hat and foreign face. She was near
enough now to see him clearly as he stepped up
daintily into the taxi-cab. Then she saw his com-
panion, the third man
She tried to scream, but emotion choked her
voice. Her “Hey, George!” was a feeble yelp. She
started on a run, but she was a few seconds too
late. When she reached the spot where the cab had
been, it had already picked up speed and was rock-
eting down the street. And then it turned the cor-
ner and was out of sight.
"Hell's bells !” cried Miss Glenn. "Of all the
rotten luck! That was George Ringgold! Sure it


THE GIRL WHO SAID NO
97
was George. Just the man who could help me, and,
oh, wouldn't he!"
Miss Glenn stamped her foot in impotent fury.
Then the tears came to her eyes. A little hick with
ninety cents, alone in the fierce old town-hell's
bells! It was putrid luck and no mistake. And good
old George, who would have put everything right
for her. Would have? She sure knew. And George
knew and he wasn't one to forget. He had made
out there, in the Golden West, the discovery that
she was not like other girls. She was the Exception.
And she had danced through the tame life of George
Ringgold, through his prim orderly ambitions and
business ways, like a little devil at once glittering
and smudgy-
For she was the girl who had said no!


CHAPTER VIII
THE CROOKED TREE
“Y Press
OU received my wife's invitation?” Pro-
fessor Ledsky inquired. “Of course. And
we are both delighted that you can come to us over
the week-end."
“It will be a great pleasure,” Mr. Guelpa re-
plied; there was real warmth in his voice. He often
said that men fall apart into groups, drawn not so
much by personal attraction, as by mental sympa-
thies. Thus, as a rule, their friendships are based
upon a common interest in sport, or business, law,
or any other profession, trade or hobby. And noth-
ing, he would say, pulls men closer together than
scientific pursuit. No matter what science; for,
when the sciences do not touch, they follow parallel
lines with the vague hope of meeting at some far-
off point. And so, if scientists do not always love
one another, it is only because they have preferred
joyous professional hatred, which is merely the re-
verse side of love and equally compelling. Just as
jockeys and journalists, lawyers and doctors de-
velop the group-tendency, so the scientific investi-
gators are drawn toward each other. Indeed it was
98


THE CROOKED TREE
IOTI
divergences. All of them! Not nine when the
tenth is unsatisfied-unexplained--for it is the
tenth one that is of the greatest importance, eh?”
Mr. Guelpa's keen eyes twinkled behind his
glasses.
“Eh? And that is why I am quite sure I have
no time for lectures just at present. I am busy,
just now."
“Interesting,” said Professor Ledsky, with one
of his swift smiles. “I am glad you have found a
case to interest you over here. It will give you a
chance to see something of our methods—perhaps.”
"Yes, perhaps. One never knows."
“It is the case you spoke of the day I met you?”
“Yes.”
“The woman who was such an unusual type?".
"Ah, but I never saw her, Professor. Un-
fortunately she had gone."
“That is unfortunate, but I presume you will
have another opportunity," Professor Ledsky went
on, “though I do not just understand what you
mean by gone?”
"I mean disappeared. I went to the house
where she had been living, accompanied by an of-
ficer from the insurance company. The place was
empty. She had vanished, slipped away in the night.
Something had frightened her off.”
“And what do you make of it, Mr. Guelpa ?”
Professor Ledsky asked gravely, as one who shared
a colleague's perplexity.


102
MR. GUELPA
"Ah, that is the question!
First find your
crime. And are we even sure of that? I think
we are. Then your victim. But have we a victim?
Yes, I can safely say we have. And the criminal?
We can only say that some one has run away.
A
woman-and women are always running away,”
Mr. Guelpa concluded, venturing upon a time-worn
cynicism, "away from something or after some one.'
"And so this woman—the type you wished to
study-"
“Mrs. Benton, the widow-yes.”
“Has escaped ?"
“Ah, ah,” Mr. Guelpa exclaimed, and a smile
twitched at his little black mustache, “but the house
was watched !”
Mr. Guelpa had been roving craftily about the
subject and now he had brought the conversation
precisely to the point he had predestined. What
he had to say was quite simple. And yet it was not
easy to put it in words.
"Yes, Professor Ledsky, the house was
watched-a wise precaution-and the detectives
followed her.”
“To be sure,” Ledsky agreed, "they would. It
was their business to do so."
“And where?” asked the little man smilingly,
"where do you suppose she went?”
Professor Ledsky stared at Mr. Guelpa for a
moment and then he said: "I have no idea."
“Of course not. How could you? Well, I
1


THE CROOKED TREE
103
will tell you.
The detectives declare the woman
took refuge in your house—the country house to
which you are good enough to welcome us to-day
as your guests. Yes, they traced Mrs. Benton there."
And with that Professor Ledsky slapped his
hands together and laughed-good wholesome,
high-keyed laughter. At the end of it he inquired,
still smiling: "What mare's nest is this, Mr.
Guelpa ?”
Mr. Guelpa knew his English as well as he
knew the number of coincidental finger-prints that
are found in 1,048,576 imprints—knew it as he
knew the Besredka test for human blood; but this
curious idiomatic phrase stumped him. He had
never heard of the mare or her nest. Explanation
made it clear: a queer blunder—a grotesque blunder.
“Of course if it had been at my offices here in
town,” Professor Ledsky volunteered, "it might
have been quite possible. Probable even, for I see
many queer patients. But my house is sacred.
That is my home and it is a long distance from here.
And there, too, I have my famous laboratory. You
may be sure I permit no outsider to visit me there.
Except, Mr. Guelpa, such visitors as you.
very proud of my laboratory. It is as nearly com-
plete as money—a great deal of money—and end-
less devotion can make it."
“I am looking forward to that," Mr. Guelpa said
brightly, “but about that woman-that Mrs. Ben-
ton—you say she couldn't be a patient?”
I am


104
MR. GUELPA
“No-no-quite impossible. I never heard of
her.
Of course my work as an alienist brings me
strange people, but this woman? No," Professor
Ledsky declared positively, “I do not know this one.
Besides my wife would have notified me of any such
event. I only go up to my country place for the
week-ends, but I am in constant communication with
Mrs. Ledsky and my secretary who has been there
all this week.”
"A mistake of the detectives," was Mr. Guelpa's
suggestion, “or perhaps—"
“A thousand perhapses will not help us, my dear
Mr. Guelpa," the professor put in, “but you will!
I'm glad you happen to be coming out to the house
this afternoon. The pleasure of your company?
I've wanted that. And my vanity is waiting for
you to praise my laboratory.
Now with your
what did you call it?—your unknown quantity,
Madame X, thrown in, I am sure the mystery of
Mrs. Benton will be cleared up to the satisfaction
of us all.”
The tall professor shot out of his chair and drew
himself erect, all pride and cordiality.
"Mrs. Guelpa and your daughter," he added,
"and your luggage-all is ready? We should be
starting."
"Quite ready. There are only two bags.
I
trust we shall not crowd your car."
“No, no, there is plenty of room, and I am sure
you will be comfortable."


THE CROOKED TREE
105
Leaving his guest, Mr. Guelpa went into the
adjoining rooms and rounded up his family and
their possessions. Although she had almost been
kept waiting Mrs. Guelpa's mood was serene. She
took a real pleasure in sharing the fame that had
come to her little husband from his books and
lectures and was proud of him and his thirty years
of difficult labor. As much as was good for him
she showed her appreciation of his success; and she
enjoyed seeing him face to face—and holding his
own—with the famous scientists whose names she
so often heard him quote.
“It was very kind of this lady to invite us,” she
told Julie, “though a call should have been made
first—but of course, after all, this is America.”
"Fa-ather," asked Julie, as she was putting on
her hat, "what shall I do there?"
"You, my dear, will probably listen to instructive
conversation. And then there is the world-famous
Ledsky laboratory. I do not know what else. Of
course you will eat. But science, my child, does
not dance."
Julie's face gloomed.
“I don't see that I'll have much fun, fa-ather.”
“My girl," Mr. Guelpa replied, "you will have
your mother.
If you are ready, come along. We
must not keep Professor Ledsky waiting any long-
er."
Indeed it was Julie's good fortune to sit with
her mother in the back seat of the big automobile all


106
MR. GUELPA
the way, as it ran through New York and out the
Westchester road. Mr. Guelpa and his host hob-
nobbed and sat together. The luggage was packed
in with the chauffeur. Before long the conversa-
tion between Professor Ledsky and Mr. Guelpa fell
away from trivialities. The white wonder of Cen-
tral Park in winter held them for only a few
moments. Professor Ledsky sat erect as was his
wont, his black eyes roving to right and left; his
hands in brown gloves played together in his lap
like little dogs, one restlessly sliding over the other.
"It is indeed a pleasure to get possession of you
for a few days, Mr. Guelpa," he remarked in that
sudden urgent way of his, "an honor!”
"Thank you, I understand that you mean a
compliment, but your language is so different, eh?
There should be two words for honor-or four or a
dozen. Now there is one kind of honor I have been
fighting against all my life-the kind they bring
into courts of justice. There is the old general, eh?
You get him in the witness chair and you can not
dig any truth out of him, if it goes against the hon-
or of the army. Honor? It is a hodge-podge—that
is your word-of contradictions. The doctor has an
honor that ties his tongue-professional honor. So
has the journalist. And a gentleman's honor makes
him pay his gambling debts before he pays the milk-
man or the midwife. It is more honorable to be-
long to a parasitic profession than it is to dig food
out of the earth to feed humanity. And the honor


THE CROOKED TREE
107
of the family that consists in covering up the crime
of one of its members, eh?"
The little man was riding one of his hobbies, and
Professor Ledsky acknowledged his jockeyship with
an approval.
“Families are breaking up,” he said, “the new
social trend is distinctly away from the home-group.
Another generation, or so, will end it."
“But men and women will remain, eh? Now
a woman puts her honor in refraining from certain
acts that a man boasts of and gets a certain kind of
honor from-ah, a dirty kind of honor if you wish,
but it is all that sort of a man wants.
No, Pro-
fessor, the word means nothing, because it means a
different thing for each of us.”
“ "I agree with you, Mr. Guelpa, and yet
science"
“Ah, there we have an honor of our own. Like
the lady-killer," Mr. Guelpa added with one of his
grim chuckles, “yes, science has its standards of
honor."
“And that, Mr. Guelpa ?”
“Truth-though the house falls."
“Yes, you are right. To get at the truth-to
establish it in a world of flux. That is what
we try to do. Newton discovered a law of gravity
and established it. Now we have torn it down.
The first genius who found that two plus two made
four invented something that has lasted so long
that even now we have just found it is not always


108
MR. GUELPA
true; and that it is possible for parallel lines to meet
somewhere. But the honor of the scientist is in
his determination to get the truth, no matter what
he has to destroy."
"The search for truth,” Mr. Guelpa acquiesced,
"yes, there is nothing else worth while. Even
though the truth crumples up into an outworn
formula, and the parallel lines come clashing to-
gether.”
"We are of one mind,” Professor Ledsky
agreed, shifting a trifle so he could stare down into
the face of the little man; under his shaggy brows
his eyes were like pits of coal, black and fathomless,
"the ultimate truth-that is, all science is hunting,
you ambng criminals, and I in aberrant minds and
the obscurest holes in which life lurks. We are
looking for the same truth.”
It is a way the scientists have—this habit of re-
peating to each other the commonplaces of their
pride in the work they do; it seems to bulk them up
tremendously and make them realize that they are
not as others are—shallow "sheiks" or the rag-tag
and bob-head of femininity. So in this race of
mutual approbation they ran neck and neck.
Meanwhile the swift automobile had rolled forty
cold miles behind it; beyond, high on a hill, they
could see the peaked roofs of an old, old stone
house.
“That's it,” Professor Ledsky announced, “my
home--and you are welcome, indeed.
My wife is


THE CROOKED TREE
109
all expectation. It will be a great pleasure to her
to meet your wife and daughter. She is very fond
of young people, yes, particularly so. She is a
young creature, herself."
Mr. Guelpa went on to say courteous guest-
like things.
“I have asked a few people to meet you,” the
professor continued, “but they will not be staying
in the house. I thought I should like to have you
to myself—for a few days, at least. I have much
to show you—if I may have your assistance in my
laboratory."
“But it will be an honor,” and Mr. Guelpa
chuckled, as though he were aware of being
facetious, "the right kind of an honor to be admitted
to your method of work."
"And, you know, if after all my work does bore
you, I hope I may have an opportunity of seeing
Mr. Guelpa in action,” Professor Ledsky returned
politely.
"Me?” exclaimed Mr. Guelpa, "I? Ah, to be
sure! Our talk had driven it out of my mind.”
"Indeed! That woman, the morbid type you
know, who escaped and whom the detectives thought
they had traced to this old house of mine," a smile
crossed the professor's sallow face and the thin
hands ran to and fro in his lap, "you surely remem-
ber?"
"Of course I remember, but it was at the back
of my mind, waiting. I never forget. Now if the


IIO
MR. GUELPA
1
detectives have not made one of their stupid mis-
takes, possibly some of your servants may be im-
plicated in Mrs. Benton's escape, eh?”
"I can hardly see how that can be possible. We
have only three indoor servants and I am number-
ing my secretary and office assistant among them.
He happens to be at the house now. I can answer
for all these attendants, but—there, Mr. Guelpa, you
have already begun--the scientific brain—the
search for truth-however, I promise you a free
hand to sift this mystery. Indeed, I am counting
on your advice and aid." Professor Ledsky broke
off, as the automobile, having breasted the hill,
swung into the curving drive that led up to the
house. What Mr. Guelpa and his family saw
was a snow-swept garden, shut in by tall hedges,
an old high-peaked stone house, with deep windows
and steps going up to a massive door. Beyond
the steps, near a corner of the mansion, grew a
warped tree, with one aged branch bending down
crookedly as though it were pointing at the door
and announcing: "Here it is, Professor Ledsky's
house that's the entrance."
Snow wrapped the tree and the crooked branch-
es and made them ghostly.
"Welcome," said Professor Ledsky; he was
helping the ladies out of the car—first Mrs. Guelpa,
who was somewhat stiff from the long ride and
very dignified in her furs, and then Julie, round
and blonde and speechless as an apricot.


THE CROOKED TREE
III
Mr. Guelpa went toward the steps and the door
of the stone house opened. And then Mr. Guelpa
got a surprise. A man stood in the doorway. Mr.
Guelpa glanced at him at first, quite casually and
then with keen scrutiny. There was nothing very
remarkable about him. Thick-set, of medium
height, with a dull flat face, hair the color of ashes
and twisted eyes that blinked at the sudden dazzle of
sunlight and snow. He did not hold himself erect.
He lounged there against the door he was holding.
Mr. Guelpa's little eyes snapped open and his
little cane tapped the door-step. It was one of his
aphorisms that one sees only what one looks at; and
that one never looks at anything unless it is already
in one's mind. Why, then, was he studying so in-
tently this slumbrous, commonplace fellow in the
doorway? He turned his eyes aside, seeing now
the white deformed tree, the ledges beyond-
Whenever Mr. Guelpa felt he was on the edge
of a mistake he took refuge, almost unconsciously,
in scientific doubt, which is merely another name
for never being sure of anything. It is the scien-
tist's rock of safety. It had enabled him to shun
many a disastrous error, upon which the glory of
his career might have been wrecked. But there
was in him—there had always been in him—an ur-
gent imagination which would not be quiet, which
had whispered to him the triumphant hypothesis of
many a crime and brought him success. Imagina-
tion? It conjured up the picture of a thick man


II2
MR. GUELPA
lounging, one arm on the mantelpiece, staring
slumbrously down at a woman who lay on a
chaise-longue in the bedroom of a Narrow House-
Imagination-
As always it had outrun the fact.
And now the two had met and blended.
The man he had seen in fancy, lounging in
Mrs. Benton's bedroom in town, he saw now loung-
ing in the doorway—here in the old stone house of
Professor Ledsky.
The Professor was speaking: “Cumber," he said,
"give a hand with these bags.”
As the man did so, Ledsky gave him a scrutiniz-
ing look.
“What has been going on here?” he asked
sharply.
Cumber stared.
“Never mind now," the professor went on a
trifle irritably. “Take in the bags.”
The professor then turned his attention to the
ladies. “Welcome to my home,” he murmured
cordially. “Permit me.” And taking an arm of
each he assisted them up the steps and ushered them
into the house.
Meanwhile Mr. Guelpa had been watching the
man addressed as Cumber.
He noted his slow walk, as he ascended the
stairs, carrying the bags, his lounging gait, his thick-
set body and above all his flat cold face


CHAPTER IX
THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
TH
HE old house built of stone hewed out of the
hill on which it stood dated from Colonial
days. It had been, of course, one of Washington's
countless headquarters; and, in the years, had been
many other things.
The grim exterior had never changed very much
and the Ledskys left it as it was. The neglected
garden had been tamed and was, in summer, bright
with color of flower and leaf. Now it was a mere
snowfield, but the hedges stood thick and upright
as walls; and tree-dentistry had stopped with ce-
ment the holes time had dug in many of the ancient
trees. Behind the house was a low stone building
which had in the days long ago housed horses and
carriages. Now it had been transformed into Pro-
fessor Ledsky's famous laboratory, and a modern
up-to-date garage built.
The interior of the house was probably what it
had been two centuries ago, with its low-ceilinged
rooms and narrow open stairways. The old-fash-
ioned furniture made a home of it. The ancient
chairs and settles and tall-boys were warm with old
I13


114
MR. GUELPA
color. In the broad living-room there were pic-
tures—fields and belfries that had been painted in
foreign lands, and old rugs, their high tones faded
into restful browns and blues. It was a house in
which time seemed to have stood still-halting in
a reminiscent mood of tranquillity, after having gath-
ered all the grave quiet beauty of the past. There
was steam-heat but in the old-fashioned living-room
a wood fire glowed in the wide chimney-place.
There were electric lights, but most of the light in
the room came from candles in sconces on the walls
and from two shaded candles on the mantel. This
evening it was a shadowy room-candle-light and
firelight blending with each other; a room of quiet
harmony and peace.
Mrs. Ledsky, slim and buoyant in her evening
gown, was talking to the housekeeper. Her young
face wore a matronly look of solicitude.
“I know it is awkward, Alva, trying to seat five
at a square table and make it look right, but you
must do the best you can. Mr. Guelpa at my right,
of course, and Mrs. Guelpa at the professor's right,
and her daughter at his left.”
“That's the way I've done it, ma'am.”
The housekeeper was a short square woman, no
longer young, capable-looking; she would have
fitted into a Swedish background.
"I hope cook has done her best with the dinner."
“She has, ma'am,” the housekeeper rejoined,
"and dinner's all ready now," and making a right-
hand turn, she marched out of the room. Her foot-


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
115
steps made a little noise in the hall and then died
away.
Somewhere a clock gave the hour; eight o'clock.
The professor came swiftly into the room where his
wife stood.
“Dinner, of course. I have just told Alva to
take up word. They'll be down in a moment,” he
said. In his evening clothes he seemed lanker and
taller than ever. "Your gown is charming. Have
I seen it before?”
"Of course you have seen it before, but I'm
glad you like it,” she said, glancing down at the
greenish silken thing which was her gown; swing-
ing a jade necklace that fell nearly to her knees.
“I must thank you for making the Guelpas so
comfortable, but you are always good to my friends
as well as to your own and I think you'll like them."
"They seem very nice indeed. Especially Mr.
Guelpa. He's a little old dear.
And the young
girl-you know how very fond I am of young
people. I am so glad they brought her.”
“Yes, yes, Eleanor, but here they come,” her
husband said in his quick nervous way.
With that the Guelpas came in. Mrs. Guelpa
was stately and gracious. For the first time since
her arrival in America she felt she had stepped into
a real home-just such a home of quiet dignity and
homely warmth as she herself had been born into
in provincial France. Something of this sort she
said to her hostess, and Julie gravely translated it
in schoolgirl English.


116
MR. GUELPA
“Ah, Mrs. Guelpa means more than that,” Mr.
Guelpa said quickly, “she was enchanted with the
rooms you have given us. They are charming.
And the flowers !"
He had a rose in his buttonhole, and a cluster
of roses clung to Julie's round waist. It was of the
flowers and the spacious bedrooms overhead and
the quaint stairways they talked as they moved into
the dining-room. There, too, was light from squat
candles on the table and from a crackling fire; it
glittered on the silver and crystal and was absorbed
by the dark paneled walls. They dined in a little
oasis of light. There were glasses at each place,
and Alva filled the smaller ones with wine the color
of topaz.
“Tiens, tiens!" Mr. Guelpa exclaimed, “but this
is a miracle."
“Pre-war stock,” the professor protested smil-
ingly, “and a hundred years from now our descend-
ants will still be drinking it."
“For me I do not care about those descendants
not even Julie's—but this is the first time I have
dined since I left the ship. We wicked Frenchmen,
you know, do not know how to dine without this !”
and Mr. Guelpa raised his glass and drank to his
hostess.
She acknowledged the courtesy with a smile that
came and went so rapidly it seemed merely a flash
across her face. But it was echoed, he noticed, in
her eyes. Mr. Guelpa's immediate decision was that


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
117
99
she was exquisite, something dainty and precious;
the young regular face was framed in soft clusters
of curls, bobbed in the prevailing fashion. It was
very becoming
Alva's service had been quietly perfect and when
she had gone away, for the last time, they lingered
over the nuts and raisins and an old bottle of "pre-
war" Burgundy. It was then Mr. Guelpa leaned
toward his host.
"I have been wondering,” he observed casually,
"whether you have any news.”
“I have been waiting to tell you," was the quick
reply. “I am really puzzled.”
“Puzzled about what?" Mrs. Ledsky asked.
She had been engaged in conversation with Mrs.
Guelpa and broke off abruptly as her husband's
words reached her.
“A queer thing, Eleanor," the professor ex-
plained, laying down the thin black cigar he had
been smoking, and tapping the table to some indef-
inite tune. “There is a woman, perhaps a criminal
woman-
Mr. Guelpa interjected a “possibly.”
“Who escaped from a house in New York and,
well, she was followed by detectives. Followed, and
traced to this house."
"Here!” Mrs. Ledsky exclaimed.
"Yes, it is very curious,” Mr. Guelpa said, "and
I took the liberty of mentioning it to Mrs. Guelpa.
We have no secrets, my dear. Eh?"


118
MR. GUELPA
"I've not had an opportunity of explaining to
Eleanor," Professor Ledsky continued, “and indeed
I know only what you told me, Mr. Guelpa."
“The facts? They are very simple. A man died
recently in New York, a strong young man.
He
was heavily insured in his wife's favor. A Mrs.
Benton. She was suspected of having-eh?-hav-
ing perhaps something to do with his sudden death.
Poison, you think, Professor ? That will be almost
impossible to prove, for the body has been cre-
mated. But the insurance people had the woman's
house watched. By day and night. And when she
slipped out in the dark the detectives followed her.
There was nothing for which they could arrest her.
So they followed-followed a devious trail, which
they report ended-here!"
“Here!” Mrs. Ledsky repeated, fear widening
her eyes, "in our house!"
"So they said. She entered and she did not
come out.”
"But this is a mistake," protested Mrs. Ledsky
now thoroughly frightened, "there is no such person
here. How could there be ?"
“That, my dear, is precisely what Mr. Guelpa
told me. That the woman entered our house and
did not come out. Annoying, isn't it? There is no
occasion for alarm, but you can imagine how glad
I am to have Mr. Guelpa with us. I need not tell
you he is the very greatest criminologist living to-
day. And the pleasure of having him here is dou-


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
119
>)
bled by the fact we can give him a little problem to
make his visit more interesting."
It was evident that Mrs. Ledsky was astonished.
“But why should such a person choose our house
where her detection would be sure?"
“My dear Eleanor," the professor replied, “I
do not think she did. The detectives blundered."
Mrs. Ledsky was relieved. She turned to Mrs.
Guelpa and resumed her conversation which Mr.
Guelpa's announcement had interrupted.
Professor Ledsky had spoken to his wife with
the utmost calm. He not only spoke calmly. He
was calm. Mr. Guelpa was astonished. This was
not the Ledsky he had known at their first meeting.
That man had vibrated like delicate steel springs;
he had quivered with nervous impatience. Mr.
Guelpa remembered how the dark eyes had blazed
with intellectual enthusiasm. Of course that had
been when Ledsky was a-gallop on his scientific
hobby. Now he was his normal self, quick of
thought and word but more like other folk. Mr.
Guelpa thought he liked better the fiery enthusiast,
but he was not quite sure. Professor Ledsky in his
home was delightful. Delightful too, with his young
wife, undoubtedly a very sensitive and highly strung
temperament. He seemed to show her more than
usual gentleness. Indeed there was something in
his manner toward her that differed from his cour-
tesy to his guests. It was deferential, protective,
conciliatory. As it should be.


I20
MR. GUELPA
"Perhaps," and Mr. Guelpa took up the pro-
fessor's remark, “the detectives did blunder. It is
so hard not to. A woman seen in the dark, lost it
may be, seen again. Yes, a blunder is possible. But
could they have been mistaken in seeing some wo-
man enter this house? One of your patients, pro-
fessor-an aberrant woman with a crazed brain-
seeking your help in her poor mad way.”
“If she were hidden here now!” Mrs. Ledsky
exclaimed, again taking up the conversation. "I
am quite brave, Mr. Guelpa, but I'm afraid of mad
people; that is why the professor never sees any.
patients here."
"I can put you at ease about that, Eleanor," the
professor interposed. “There is no such person in
the house or on the premises. I've questioned all
our people. They know nothing. They have seen
no one. Mr. Guelpa, it is all a mare's nest, as I told
you.”
“You are sure then of your people ?”
"Entirely. I've had a talk with the cook, Aman-
da, and with Mrs. Spiller, the housekeeper-I assure
you they have neither seen your mysterious crimi-
nal, much less hidden her away."
“And your Cumber?” Mrs. Ledsky asked sud-
denly; her voice was low but there was an unex-
pected note of bitterness in it.
Her husband stared at her under his shaggy
brows, for a moment, and then a smile lit up his
hollow face.


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
121
"Pardon me,” he said, “I must explain that Cum-
ber is our one bone of domestic contention. Isn't
he, Eleanor ?"
"You know I have never liked him, never
trusted him," Mrs. Ledsky retorted, “in fact, I
loathe him."
Her young face was flushed and there were
blue lights of anger in her eyes.
"You would have got rid of him long agoif
you had been willing to listen to me!”
“Poor Cumber!" and Professor Ledsky laughed
abruptly, and the lean fingers once more tapped
faintly the same tune on the table, “Mrs. Ledsky is
quite irreconcilable. Woman's prejudice, Mr. Guel-
pa, though I must admit the poor fellow is not a
very cheerful person around the house. Perhaps
I could do without him, but I haven't the heart-
really, Eleanor, I haven't the heart to send him
away. Of course he is useful to me. My right-hand
man in the laboratory. Absolutely trustworthy.
But it is only because I understand him. Anywhere
else he'd be like a lost dog." He was presenting his
apology for Cumber with a little of his old urgency.
“Cumber?” Mr. Guelpa inquired, “the man we
saw at the door?"
“Yes. Poor fellow. It was years ago when I
was lecturing at the Medical College. He came to
me, a friendless lad, penniless, without kith or kin.
And yet in that boy was a fine ambition-an inborn
love for knowledge. You have seen that type, Mrs.


I22
MR. GUELPA
Guelpa," the professor turned to her with a polite
endeavor to draw her into the conversation. “Just
a miserable, clumsy, thwarted creature of the under-
world, with a tireless ambition to climb up into the
world of thought, of knowledge, of science, of,
honor. It touched me deeply, I admit, and I have
done what I could for him. He became a sort of
handy man for me. He tried to push through the
classes and get a degree. But he failed, failed-
early hardships had stunted the brain, I dare say.
He is a strong man now physically but somewhat
mentally dull. Still I haven't the heart to turn him
adrift. He is faithful, useful and really," he
turned to his wife, “really Eleanor, he does no
harm. His defects are due to his wretched child-
hood. Surely he is not to be blamed for that?"
His persuasive appeal for Cumber met with sym-
pathetic approval from Julie and she said as much;
but it did not appear to soften Mrs. Ledsky.
“Of course you'll stand by him, you always
have,” she retorted, and again blue lights of anger
shone in her eyes.
Mr. Guelpa poured oil on the matrimonial dis-
cussion; for to the professor he said, “Ah, it is
hard to break old links, especially those of protec-
tion—for some one you have helped on for years,"
and he told Mrs. Ledsky, “But I can see why there
is no particular reason you should share that feel-
ing. I quite understand.”
"My wife has such a kind heart,” the professor


124
MR. GUELPA
conversation. “And it is tiresome for you to hear
nothing but Cumber, isn't it?"
“I understand so little,” Mrs. Guelpa murmured
in her broken English, "to me it does not much
matter what is talked about," and she smiled.
“Mother hopes to learn to speak English,” Julie
interposed with the diffidence of the young French
girl, “don't you, mother?"
“Yes, yes—some time.”
Mrs. Ledsky rose.
“Come. The coffee is in the living-room.”
She stood up impulsively, forcing her guests to
their feet. She took Julie's arm with one hand and
Mr. Guelpa's with another and swept them out of
the room leaving her husband to follow with Mrs.
Guelpa.
"I am sorry," she whispered to Mr. Guelpa,
"but I do hate that tiresome man. And I hope he
was listening-he would be! Well, he heard what
I thought of him. But, oh, Mr. Guelpa, I hope you
do not think I was very rude.”
“I think you are always charming, my dear
hostess; and I believe Julie agrees with me? Eh,
Julie?"
“Yes, fa-ather, I do. And I am sure that man
is quite horrid.”
Mrs. Ledsky gave Julie's arm a sympathetic lit-
tle squeeze.
“I have one partisan anyhow."
In order to meet her eyes Mr. Guelpa had to


126
MR. GUELPA
"I am going to do that, too, Mr. Guelpa, and
when you gentlemen have finished your coffee, I
hope to induce Mrs. Guelpa to give us some music.
I understand she is a musician."
Mr. Guelpa was pleased. He glanced admiring-
ly at his wife who was drinking the coffee Julie had
just handed her.
“Do you understand that, my dear?”
"I am afraid I did not quite catch the meaning,
Jules.”
“Mrs. Ledsky wishes to know if you will give us
some music.” He spoke French.
"With great pleasure,” Mrs. Guelpa smiled and
nodded.
The ladies having seated themselves near the
coffee table with a congenial topic of conversation,
Mr. Guelpa placed himself beside the professor who
said abruptly:
"About this woman, Mr. Guelpa, it is a nuisance.
It has disturbed my wife. The horrible idea that
any one, perhaps a criminal, should be hidden in
the house has made her nervous. And then with
that confirmed prejudice against poor Cumber she
may be imagining all sorts of things."
“Yes," Mr. Guelpa assented blankly, but for a
second or two he gave no other answer; he, too,
was imagining things: the man who had met him
on the door-step was Cumber, and with that figure
lounging at the door, Mr. Guelpa was comparing
a mental image he had built up in that bedroom in
1
1


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
127
the Narrow House, where some one very similar
lounged. The image and the man resembled each
other. Or did they? One is liable to blunder when
one is trusting only to imagination.
"It should be easy to set Mrs. Ledsky's mind at
rest,” he said at last. “Of course you have made a
thorough search.”
"We've been all over the garden, though a kit-
ten couldn't hide there. The laboratory and the
garage--and they are locked and the house from
cellar to garret. I tell you it is a mistake!
mistake! My
house !" and the professor's black eyes blazed down
at the little man.
"And Mrs. Ledsky is still alarmed?”
“You have seen for yourself.”
“True, and we must not let her be alarmed.
Mrs. Guelpa, too, and Julie! I fear they are also
a trifle uncomfortable. A criminal, perhaps an in-
sane woman, hiding, creeping about in your quiet
home, eh? As you say, it is horrible.”
“Silly and horrible, yes.'
“Why not try again? Of course we know it is
a blunder, eh? But if we can assure the ladies it
is—what do you call it ?—the mare's nest, they will
be more comfortable. Women like certainty.”
"It is what I was about to propose.
In fact
I'm glad you are here—if it were only for that!"
The professor was alert, quivering with the urgency
he had shown when he galloped his scientific hobby,
for Mr. Guelpa's benefit.


128
MR. GUELPA
“And the servants? May I see them first?"
“Of course.
At once."
"And Cumber?"
“Cumber? Certainly," the professor repeated
impatiently, “at once, at once.”
“They will no doubt be in the kitchen? We will
begin there," and without waiting for a reply, Mr.
Guelpa reassured the ladies: "We are going to lay
that naughty little ghost that annoys you! And you
will remain here quiet and safe until we return. My
wife will play for you, Mrs. Ledsky. And while
we are gone you can make sure the windows are
locked. And you shall turn the keys in the doors
I see this room has two doors—and when we come
back we shall all laugh at our fears together. Eh,
Julie?”
"I'm not afraid."
“Brave child !”
The little man of science was mysterious, smil-
ing, playful, all in one; and his beady eyes twinkled
behind his glasses. Mrs. Guelpa deigned to recog-
nize his cheerful mood and Julie nodded. Their
hostess did not speak, but her eyes followed the
two men until the door closed behind them.
In the kitchen at the back of the house and sepa-
rated from it by a hallway, the chatter died out
suddenly as they entered. It was evidently the cook
who had been talking at full speed. This Amanda
was a lean active woman, of forty-five or more,
whose deeply lined face told of a somewhat crusty


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
129
temper, due to hot stoves or long spinsterhood. She
was putting on her hat and coat, preparatory to her
home-going. She lived with a married sister in one
of the houses below the hill. There she found the
clacking sort of gossip she needed. And it was
evident from the set of her prim face that this eve-
ning Amanda was well primed for talk. She was
holding in the story of the runaway woman, of the
detectives, of the search of the house.
And now
Mr. Guelpa's questions were to add a bit to her
tale.
“This is Amanda," said Professor Ledsky by
way of introduction.
Mr. Guelpa bowed and smiled; and with a few
questions probed her and found her quite empty of
information; all she knew was the talk of the
kitchen and she had been the chief contributor to it.
"I shall see you to the gate, Amanda," the pro-
fessor said. “We are keeping it locked to-night.
Cumber will let you in when you come to-morrow
morning.”
"Well, I never!” gasped Amanda. "Why, you'll
feel like prisoners.”
“No, we shall only feel more secure."
He went out with her, while Mr. Guelpa, low
voiced and sympathetic, interrogated Alva Spiller.
The housekeeper had been sitting squarely on a
wooden chair, but she rose when Mr. Guelpa ad-
dressed her. Her peasant face was meaningless as
a slab of clay. The little Frenchman's genial ques-


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
131
And Mr. Guelpa had not expected anything so ob-
vious. But suppose a woman had really been fol-
lowed to the house and later had escaped from it
unseen. Some one aiding her, perhaps. But short
as may have been her stay, she must have left some
trace—some impress of matter on matter: the hol-
low where the fugitive hare has rested. And yet-
And yet Mr. Guelpa's investigation was per-
functory. He stood in the old cellars—passed from
one to the other—while Cumber did the heavy work
of search, probing, overturning anything that might
have offered shelter, while Professor Ledsky rapped
out impatient commands. Empty the long halls
and the store-rooms on the kitchen floor. The old-
fashioned closets and the rooms on the ground
floor were drawn without result.
And they went
up to the bedrooms. Professor Ledsky, all nerves
and impetuosity, was ahead. Then Cumber, and
Mr. Guelpa followed, his quick eyes seeing every-
thing. They visited the suite occupied by the Guel-
pas—two bedrooms with a bath and a dressing-
room between them. Across the way a suite simi-
larly arranged where the Ledskys slept. At the
back were two smaller guest chambers and another
bath. Everywhere was the orderliness of good
housekeeping. It was an old home kept young-
mellow as age and fresh as youth.
“You'll want a look at everything, I know,"
Professor Ledsky had said, as he threw open the
closets in his suite. His own was filled with gara


132
MR. GUELPA
9)
ments, mostly black, all on hangers; his shoes were
treed and neatly ranged on a narrow shelf.
“I like order," he explained curtly, “and thanks
to Cumber I get it."
Mrs. Ledsky's closet, wide and deep, was also
filled with hanging garments; and as her husband
tossed them to and fro there came a faint odor,
delicate as that of far-off flowers.
“Tiens! tiens!" protested Mr. Guelpa, reproach-
fully, “we must not intrude here. You are a bold
husband to do that."
"Perhaps that's just what Mrs. Ledsky is afraid
of-some one creeping out of her closet at night.
The poor girl is excessively nervous. She thinks
she is brave, but she never retires without looking
under the bed for some terrible visitor."
“That seems to be a fear many woman inherit.”
“Yes, it's heredity-one of heredity's dark bur-
dens, just as men have to carry old atavisms of
violence," Professor Ledsky ran his long fingers
through his hair, ruffling it back from his forehead.
"It is a study that will lead us far."
“Yes, yes, and since there is nothing to keep us
here,” Mr. Guelpa suggested, “shall we go on?”
“There are a few rooms above. Cumber's bed-
room. Alva's, too; and a room the cook sometimes
occupies when she sleeps here, which on stormy
nights she usually does. That is all-except a
trunk-room. Go on, Cumber. Turn on the lights.”
Behind them from cellar to this floor they had


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
133
left the lights shining. A narrow enclosed staircase
led up to what had once been a sloping garret and
was now divided into habitable rooms. The carpet
was slightly worn, perhaps by Cumber's shuffling
feet and Alva Spiller's peasant tread. It was Al-
va's room at the end of the hall-small, but fur-
nished with old comfortable things; the bed had tall
slim posts. There was a square of brownish carpet
on the floor and white curtains at the windows. At
one side of the room were open shelves and rows of
hooks, where Alva's simple work-a-day clothes were
displayed.
The trunk-room was next. It did not hold them
long, though Cumber, apparently always willing,
tossed the trunks about. Mr. Guelpa watched him.
It was not that Mr. Guelpa seemed disinterested.
He was talkative and alert, though he did not share
the professor's nervous impatience.
went often to the slumbrous man, slow-footed,
rather somber in his worn black clothes, who ac-
companied them from room to room; and had
spoken scarcely a dozen words.
“This is my room,” he said, at last breaking
silence; he opened a door and punched up the light.
It was a rather long narrow room exactly opposite
the one Amanda sometimes occupied and which had
told them nothing. It filled precisely the space of
the two smaller chambers across the way.
bare and simple. There were three large pieces of
furniture; a colonial bed, a broad table of pine-
But his eyes
It was


134
MR. GUELPA
wood, covered with books and writing material, and
a huge stuffed chair, deformed by age. On one
wall were half a dozen shelves filled with books
school-books, apparently, text-books, medical books,
dictionaries
“Ah, you are a student, Mr. Cumber, now I
might have known it,” Mr. Guelpa said genially,
“and what a quiet retreat this is. A student. A
recluse. I am sure there is an invisible sign on the
door, eh?" and Mr. Guelpa chuckled at his own
humor. “And it reads: 'No women admitted !'”
“That's right,” Cumber answered shortly, “this
is my room and I keep it to myself. Look where
you please."
"It is hardly worth while, is it?" said Mr. Guel-
pa; he glanced carelessly round the room, "Ah,
you are better off than Mistress Alva—I see you
have a closet, eh?"
He opened the door of the closet. Not many
clothes hung there—it was a skimp wardrobe even
for one who was a mere hanger-on of the illustri-
ous scientist. Mr. Guelpa paused scarcely a mo-
ment; and yet in that moment he had seen precisely
what he had expected to see—the one thing that
had beckoned him as he had followed his compan-
ions in that tedious search of the stone house. And
his eyes trained to observation needed only that
fleeting moment.
What hung in front of him was an old tweed
coat, worn at the elbows to threadbare nakedness,


THE IMAGE AND THE MAN
135
and with loose tufts here and there on the sleeves;
only a dark gray coat.
His smile was genial as ever, when he swung
about in his dapper way and faced the room. Indeed
he rather beamed on Cumber, who was lounging in
front of the cold fireplace, one elbow resting on the
mantelpiece.
That man was Cumber and that gray coat in
the closet was his coat.
"Tiens! tiens!" In that heavy drooping figure
he recognized the man his imagination had built up
in Mrs. Benton's room-just so he had pictured him
leaning on the mantel, staring down at the couch
on which she lay, leaving his imprint-elbow-print
of a worn gray coat-
Just so. There was the man. The image and
the man were one, now; they had melted into each
other as shadow melts into substance.
And Mr. Guelpa's approving smile was wholly,
for himself.
He had touched, he knew, the edge of the mys-
tery of the Narrow House, where crime had played
hide-and-seek.


CHAPTER X
THB GRAY COAT
IT
T CHANCED to be a frost-bound winter, but
many of Professor Ledsky's friends and associ-
ates braved the cold ride to his country place. The
illustrious scientist was not a forthcoming man. He
was widely known to the public by his lectures and
his publications and by his appearance now and then
as expert, in some case of importance; but he
gave little time to social life, and rarely fraternized
even with his colleagues and fellow-workers in
science. Perhaps it was his very aloofness that
drew them to him when he opened his door, as he
did during Mr. Guelpa's visit; perhaps it was the
opportunity of meeting the famous French criminal
scientist that drew them. At all events they came.
There were luncheons and dinners in the paneled
dining-room and interminable talks in the labora-
tory. Fusty old men of science and smart young
ones met and quarreled and revered each other-al-
ways with certain reservations. Mr. Guelpa had
golden chances for riding his string of hobbies; and
being no foe to talking he talked. And into those
cantering conversations Professor Ledsky had a
136


THE GRAY COAT
137
curious leaping way-sudden and short as though he
were taking a hurdle of entering. Then smooth-
ing down his hair and his enthusiasm he would
relapse into silence and listen to his guests. Α!
charming host, provocative and sympathetic. The
week-end stretched into days.
And so for those few days Mr. Guelpa fared
well. His family fared equally well. Mrs.
Guelpa loved the ripe comfort of the old house and
found her kind of pleasure in thundering on the
piano. Julie was placid and gloomy as a mother-
ridden child.
Then one day—it was a Sunday—there came
one of Mrs. Ledsky's friends with her two girls :
the Netleys.
Mrs. Netley was a tall faded woman who had
been pretty, but seemed to be somewhat cowed by
maternity. One of her daughters, Dora, was a
ripe girl, almost a woman. She was all curves.
No girl could be so good as she appeared to be.
She looked as though she had never seen an apple
and wouldn't know one if she saw it. As far as
demure innocence went, she apparently had Eve
backed off the landscape.
Her sister was a kindling lass of fifteen. Her
name was Marian. But she signed her numerous
letters “Mary Ann,” or “Merely Me." She was all
silk stockings and delightful little squeals of laugh-
ter and when she nodded her flaming bobbed head
she displayed a clean-shaven neck and bones where


138
MR. GUELPA
her shoulders would be. Both the Netley girls
amazed, astounded and delighted Julie. The firm
but not tyrannical way they kept Mrs. Netley in
order, filled her with awe-and she took a sideling
glance at her own regal mother.
This look, swift and secret, was intercepted by
Mrs. Ledsky and rewarded with a smile of perfect
comprehension.
A simple thing, but at that instant Julie's
future for good or ill—was decided for all time.
A strange thing; for in the young matron's smile
Julie read not only understanding but sympathy
so true that she realized she had made her first
woman friend.
A great moment. Filled with
the seeds of futurity. Her eyes sent back adora-
tion.
The general conversation ran into French, for
the Netleys had been much abroad, and Mrs. Led-
sky, laughing at her own blunders, managed to keep
within it.
It was Mary Ann, flappering about from chair
to chair, who finally found herself sitting beside
Julie. After a sweet little squeal of laughter-just
to announce herself—she whispered: “I'm en-
gaged—and mother's furious.”
Julie was filled with awe.
Her mild eyes
opened wide before this revelation.
“Your mother does not approve? Then how
can you be engaged? Besides you are so young,"
she said gravely, “no wonder."


THE GRAY COAT
139
“Young? I'm fifteen.
But of course it may
not last.
I've been engaged three times, you see,
and you can't tell. But you've got to try them out,
haven't you?" And all the sex-wisdom of flapper-
dom looked out of the girl's reddish eyes, as she
added, “It may be mere infatuation.”
Julie's young being was shaken with horror and
curiosity. In her old-country world a betrothal
was as serious and almost as unbreakable as mar-
riage; she, too, had had her dream of love, but al-
ways it appeared against a background of fathers
and mothers getting together, of formal dinners and
meetings of family lawyers, of soft conversations
tête-à-tête in the drawing-room—while mother pre-
tended to be reading a book, a stealthy pressure of
hands at parting, perhaps even a dare-devil kiss on
the cheek, for a gentleman respects the girl who is
to be his wife-his, you understand and therefore a
precious possession to be handled reverently.
And this was in Julie's mind as she gazed at
the bewildering Mary Ann-all curled red hair and
shaved neck and silk legs and eyes that mocked her
with the terrible sagacities of flapperdom.
Then curiosity, greatly daring, overcame her
terror of this young demon. She lowered her
voice to a whisper.
“Has he given you a kiss ?" she found herself
saying.
Mary Ann stared; then she squealed like some
extraordinary musical baby-pig; again she stared


140
MR. GUELPA
no! Julie was not guying her; she hauled down
her laughter until it was a mere giggle:
"You don't have to get engaged for that,” she
said.
“That?"
“Kiss a man.
Getting engaged has nothing to
do with that. Of course when you get engaged
men always make you promise never to kiss any
one else," again she emitted an entrancing squeal;
“aren't they silly asses? Of course I always prom-
ise. That's half the fun. But this time,” Mary
Ann went on and her little face took on a look of
perfect delight, “I simply adore him. Oh, damn,
I hope it's not just another infatuation.
I just
worship him. He's so different-sometimes I
think he's crazy.
“Crazy? You mean insane," Julie was be-
wildered; it was all too deep for her.
“H'm, h’m,” Mary Ann nodded, tapping her
forehead, “belfry. Bats."
"I am so very sorry-
“What are you sorry about? He can't help it.
He's French.”
"French-but-"
"All Frenchmen are like that. And Paul is
just the same as the others, that's all.”
Julie got in another exclamation.
"Paul!” she repeated quickly.
“Paul Dupuis—isn't it a peach of a name. Say,
I want it. Marianne Dupuis. That's one reason


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141
why I love him, I suppose. If only he were a
count! Anyway he's the funniest old dear-if he'd
only get a hair-cut-"
"We know Mr. Paul Dupuis,” Julie remarked
very calmly, though all sorts of wild things were
racing about inside her. "His father is the banker
in Paris. Fa-ather knows him and mother, too."
“My Paul Dupuis?”
“Yes, he came over on the ship with us."
"Mummy!" this was a wild scream from the
child of all the sagacities, "what do you think! Miss
Guelpa knows my Paul!"
"My dear, you might—"
“Paul Dupuis! To think of their being
friends!”
“Only acquaintances,” Julie said placidly. “We
met him on shipboard, but my step-father, Mr. Guel-
pa, knew his father, so he was introduced—I think
it was the third day out—"
"I don't know as I like it," Mary Ann declared
'judiciously, “but anyway he's here. He is visiting
the Emory people—the dearest friends of ours."
Julie was in deep water. The slim figure that
had begun to haunt her girlish dreams was that of
Paul Dupuis; and it was a boyish figure, with a
quiet face-rather wistful it looked in her dreams-
with mysterious eyes the color of deep sea-water,
and longish pale hair; a dreamer who seemed right-
ly to belong to dreams. And Julie had walked the
deck with him dreamily in the rolling ship. She


142
MR. GUELPA
felt Mrs. Ledsky's eyes upon her. They were the
eyes of her new friend. They understood, they
comforted, they promised. She turned again to
Mary Ann and tried to talk to her ; but she did not
know what to say. Paul was betrothed to this
young girl.
She tried not to look at the painted
mouth-so exquisite and loosely adventurous, the
primness all kissed out of it, a smile always lurking
in it, like a provocation—like bait. She did not
hear much of the conversation now; she hardly
listened; they were all chattering English, save her
mother who covered her silence with an unyielding
social smile. She was glad when the Netleys
finally went away. They had all kissed her. Mary,
Ann had kissed her.
She ran up-stairs and washed her face. And
that night the familiar dream of Paul Dupuis did
not come. She woke toward dawn from a troubled
vision in which she had seen two men; they were
standing together there, hour after hour, it seemed
to her; they were speaking in a low voice, so low
she could not hear a word they said; there were
gestures, too, but quite meaningless; and everything
in the dream was suspicious, equivocal, menacing, it
went on and on: and then Eleanor Ledsky—her new
friend-glided into it and the two men stared at
her; it was as though there were something in the
staring eyes of the men that pushed her back and
farther back out of the dream until she vanished.
She waited impatiently until it was late enough


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143
to seek out her hostess. That was nearly ten
o'clock. She found Mrs. Ledsky in the living-room.
They came together, as by a sort of instinct, and,
for the first time, kissed each other good morning.
Their eyes challenged each other and found the
answer good. It was an unexpected friendship,
one of those beautiful things that come too rarely
into the lives of women. And almost without
words they disclosed themselves to each other. And
their sudden friendship-uniting their wild differ-
ences of race, age and experiences seemed to be
something immemorially old that they remembered
out of scores of past lives. They did not speak of
it. Perhaps they did not wholly realize the depth
of this new strange sympathy. They merely
touched the surface of it, speaking lightly of the un-
familiar thing. But sitting there in the morning
light Julie confided to Eleanor Ledsky the first se-
cret she had ever confided to any one. She had
never thought it possible she would let another than
herself look into her secret stronghold, where she
dwelt alone with her dream and girlish reticences.
And now she opened every door, see, this is the
real me.
And Paul
An hour later, Mr. Guelpa, who was in deep
dispute with Professor Ledsky in the laboratory,
heard a familiar voice bleating and swift feet on the
frozen path outside. He opened the door and saw
Julie. And she was running. It might be that


144
MR. GUELPA
in Julie's eighteen docile years Mr. Guelpa had
sometimes seen her run, but never like this. Her
feet danced and her eyes danced and seemingly all
the plump life-cells in her young body were dancing,
too. He went toward her fending her off with
both arms, for he feared anything might happen-an
embrace, even.
With one final bleat of "Fa-ather," Julie pulled
herself up.
"Julie, you are ecstatic,” he said, waving her off,
"and I refuse to be the step-father of an ecstatic
child. What has happened to you? Collect your
thoughts and put them in order."
“Fa-ather, it's a dance.
To-day. We are go-
ing to have a dance to-day. A thé-dansant!" her
ecstasy was unabated.
"Is this the way dancing takes you?" Mr. Guel-
pa inquired.
“Fa-ather, lots of girls are coming--and men.
And Paul-I mean Mr. Dupuis."
“Tiens! That interests you!"
“Fa-ather, I thought you liked him."
"Certainly I do, Julie, and I am glad you are
going to have a dance. And of course you are
pleased to meet some one from home, eh? There,
tell me all about it but be quick, otherwise we shall
freeze."
And Julie told him all about it as quickly as she
could.
The Netleys had called; and they knew the


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145
Emorys and Paul was their guest; and like a flash
Mrs. Ledsky arranged this party.
It had been as
simple as that. And Julie who felt that she had,
like Columbus, discovered America, explained how
it had all been done. Mrs. Ledsky was the clever-
est—and dearest—thing you ever saw. She had
asked the Netleys, of course, and she had merely,
taken up the telephone. Last night and this morn-
ing. This morning especially. She had talked
to dozens of people, smiling and nodding at the
telephone, and she had got a little crowd. And
some would stay to dinner. And then she had
gone back to that miraculous telephone and ordered
a band for the music—the jazziest music and all
black boys, and a caterer with everything to eat and
drink and waiters in white ties and white coats—Oh,
Fa-ather, why isn't there a telephone like that in
Paris ! The America Columbus stumbled upon
never amazed him so much as this one Julie had dis-
covered. And Paul-
"I'm glad you are going to have a bit of gaiety,
my dear,” Mr. Guelpa observed in his best step-
fatherly manner, "and now go and tell your mother
the rest of it. I am keeping Professor Ledsky
waiting. And he has wisdom on the tip of his
tongue. Incidentally I am freezing."
Indeed he had left the professor in the middle of
a sentence. What was it? Some theory or other.
Mr. Guelpa remembered two words. He reentered
the laboratory without an apology:


146
MR. GUELPA
“Shifting sands, you were saying, how true it
is,” he remarked.
Professor Ledsky whirled round and ran his
long fingers through his mass of hair.
"Shifting sands, yes, that is all we have built
on-guess-work.
All the old facts science thought
it had acquired and established have changed their
faces. They have taken off their old marks and
put on new ones, and the science we try to build up
out of them is a helter-skelter thing that changes
as we touch it-scientific guess-work.”
The laboratory in which Professor Ledsky was
letting himself go to sympathetic ears, was known
by repute wherever there are men who seek in
matter the secrets of life, but its doors had admitted
few visitors. Professor Ledsky was a pioneer, who
worked alone, making his own experiments, quarry-
ing out his own facts. That may have been why he
preferred an assistant no more expert than the
slumbrous Cumber. He was jealous of his work,
hiding it from the world until it was ripe for dis-
closure and new glory blazed round his name.
The transformation of the old coach-house, of
which only the stone walls remained, had given
two ample apartments: the first room was a sort of
library filled with charts, with books and records in
all languages; beyond was the experimental labora-
tory; and a fortune had gone to its creation and con-
tinuous renewal. Here the windows were blocked.
Daylight came from above; and the artificial light


THE GRAY COAT
147
and color could be brought to life by every known
contrivance. On tables, on stands, on bases of
metal and cement, were the machines, dainty or
monstrous, devised by man for quarrying into liv-
ing matter-instruments so delicate they could
weigh the sediment condensed from the moisture on
the temples of a woman in agony, or a man's red de-
posit of anger; monstrous prying devices that
could trace the heredity in a simple drop of spilled
blood, or hunt the truth to its hiding-place in faint
fugitive alcoloids.
Much more.
Lenses that
could photograph the mysterious substance that per-
vades animate matter and records it on chromolith-
ic plates. Guinea-pigs, squeaking and breeding in
long cages—what had they contributed to Ledsky's
Experimental Heredity?
So complete, so perfect, this workshop was
that Mr. Guelpa had at first to brush away a slight
feeling of envy. There was no place for envy in
his admiration for this master of science.
And now as Professor Ledsky's outburst came
to an end, he said:
"I could spend a lifetime here."
“At least I hope we shall spend many profitable
hours here,” the professor replied, his hollow face
still flushed with enthusiasm, his deep eyes glowing,
and the restless capable hands tormenting each other,
"for I'll put off as much of my work as I can.
I
have to work like a dog. And now you know
why—it is all for this, this," a swift gesture of his


148
MR. GUELPA
long arms embraced the laboratory, "and I spare it
nothing. I give it my money and my sleep. And
I've things to show you, Mr. Guelpa-
Once more Mr. Guelpa found himself listening
to the vehement declamations--the fiery clatter of
talk about the new experiments in chemico-psychic
life; and it seemed to him that Professor Ledsky was
speaking out of an infinite loneliness-that urgent
arrogant thought had been bottled up within him
and must find a listener.
On the table a telephone buzzed lightly.
"Now what is that call?” Professor Ledsky
asked abruptly. “I said I was not to be disturbed."
He took down the receiver and listened, frown-
ing.
"No," he snapped out; again he listened and at
last said: “Very well. I suppose I must. Have
the car ready. And you are to go with me.
Yes,
at once.”
He hung up the receiver and turned regretfully,
to his guest.
“I'm sorry," and his face showed his annoyance,
"but I am called to town. I said I'd put off my
work that we'd have another day of it here to-
gether—but you see. I've a case I can't put off-
you'll pardon me, will you not?
I may be able to
get back in time for dinner. I hope so."
"Do not trouble yourself about it, Professor, I
shall be quite well off, with myself and the ladies,"
Mr. Guelpa replied politely. "And some other
'day~"


THE GRAY COAT
149
"You will forgive me if I go at once. Pray
look about as much as you please. Make yourself
perfectly at home, and lock the door of the lab-
oratory when you go out."
Professor Ledsky hurried away.
Left alone Mr. Guelpa strolled to and fro, ap-
parently without much interest in the wonders of
the laboratory. He picked up his little round black
hat and brushed off the invisible dust and polished
the crown.
He was not far from the door, which
had been left ajar, when he heard the noise of the
motor. He saw Professor Ledsky enter the car.
Then Cumber-a slow-moving Cumber dressed in
black-got in beside him and the machine moved
on.
For quite a while Mr. Guelpa stood, nursing his
little hat, his eyes fixed on the road down which the
motor-car was sweeping. At last he went out and,
locking the door behind him, made his way across
the garden to the old stone house. There he found
domestic hubbub. Amanda and Alva Spiller were
taking rugs out of the living-room, disclosing a
good dancing floor, and Mrs. Ledsky hovered about
like a butterfly that had turned working-bee.
Above stairs in her room Mrs. Guelpa was lower-
ing over a gown, which seemed fit for the occasion.
Julie came with sand colored stockings dangling
from her hands, saying in a tone of deep dejection:
“Mother, look at that ladder. Now what dress
shall I wear?”


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151
He was certain this was the coat that had left
its traces on the mantelpiece in the bedroom of
Mrs. Benton, yonder in the house in New York;
but his certitude was mental; the truth, infallible
and material, would be established by a comparison
of the cloth and the cast he had made of the im-
prints. He had all he needed, he decided, and his
work there was done-his work of burglary and
theft. He gave one farewell glance round. And
then—he knew not why-he halted suddenly on his
way to the door. It was as though some one had
tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“Tiens! tiens!"
The little man wheeled toward the bookshelves.
It must be there-this obscure thing he had seen
and not regarded—the unknown thing that tugged
at his attention, and seemed to be whispering to his
subconscious mind: “Here I am, Mr. Guelpa, here!"
Books, books, books-he did not disturb any
of
them. He merely stood and looked, letting his eyes
rove over the various shelves. It was those books
that pulled him mysteriously; he looked up adjust-
ing his eye-glasses to read the titles. One book in
particular caught his attention, It was a General
History, Vol. ü—one of those works without pedi-
gree, fit merely to pad a library shelf. And yet it
seemed to have a strange attraction for him.
The mere fact that it attracted him, in an ob-
scure way, meant something. Very carefully, touch-
ing only the top corner, Mr. Guelpa took down the


152
MR. GUELPA
volume and turned back the cover. There was no
name on the blank inside cover, no writing, none
on the blank page opposite. Mr. Guelpa replaced it
on the shelf, and for a little while he stood frowning
at it. A commonplace book that might well be
found anywhere. A second-hand book or third-hand.
It meant nothing; and yet always in some persistent
way it caught at Mr. Guelpa's attention-clung
to it, would not let it go. He took it down again
and ran his hand back of the shelf. Nothing. And
yet Mr. Guelpa knew that some vague, half buried
part of his mind was trying to make itself heard.
He replaced the book carefully.
Well, at all events he had the coat!
He laughed in his soft chuckling way.
Burglary! And the loot!
He slipped on the old gray coat over his own
smart morning coat; it hung loose and long on his
slim body, but his overcoat was ample and it fitted
over it and when buttoned up hid it entirely. With
a new chuckle of satisfaction he cocked his little
round hat at the proper angle and took up his walk-
ing-stick and gloves. He went out, leaving the door
unlocked for his button-hook was ineffectual. And
at best he was a poor burglar.
Soft of foot he slipped down to the floor below.
He could hear his wife and her daughter having
words of excitement-Julie's voice pitched to a tone
of surprising gaiety. Without pausing he descended
to the living-room, correct, amiable, holding now


THE GRAY COAT
153
the little hat in his hand. He found a flushed and
busy hostess, still occupied with the household tur-
moil that precedes an impromptu dance.
He thanked her for the pleasure she was giving
Julie; and Mrs. Guelpa and himself. She was very
good, too good to them
"I couldn't be,” Mrs. Ledsky replied gaily, "and
your daughter is a darling."
“You have done something to her, Mrs. Led-
sky."
"Perhaps," she assented with her mystifying
smile. "And you, Mr. Guelpa, do you promise me
a dance ? Come !"
She challenged him prettily.
"Ah, my dear, you honor me-but science does
not dance," he declared.
Too well she knew it; there was not much gaiety
in being the wife of science-a science that did not
laugh or jazz, or talk humanly.
She had thought Mr. Guelpa was different. The
kindly wrinkled face, the youthfulness that clung
to his dyed mustache. He seemed to read her
thought.
“I have not been so flattered for years,” he said,
"and after all I may hold you to it. Why not?"
“Are you going for a walk?” she inquired.
"Yes—a long walk. And then I shall be work-
ing in the laboratory. So do not give yourself any
concern about me. I have the key. I shall be all
right.”


154
MR. GUELPA
They were both smiling when he took his de-
parture.
He left by the front door. The gates of the drive
were closed. But in any case that was not the way
he had in mind. Twirling his cane he sauntered on
toward the laboratory. The key was in his hand,
but he did not thrust it into the lock. The labora-
tory door where he stood could not be seen from
the house, or from the gates. He waited, in seem-
ing indecision. Suddenly he slipped round the cor-
ner to the blind-side of the building. There was
a narrow path between it and the thick hedge that
fenced in the estate. It was broad and deep, but
at one point its solidity was only apparent. Light
showed through the frozen bushes indicating a pos-
sible way out, for agility packed into a small body.
Putting the key to the laboratory in his pocket,
fastening the last button of his neat gloves, touch-
ing up his mustache, he smiled at the space in the
hedge as though it were already an old acquaint-
ance.
Then he bent back the branches.
They cracked faintly, and snapped. He stood
quite still; one minute, two minutes; nothing hap-
pened.
Then deftly he slipped through the hedge.
Before he could straighten up-before he had
more than a glimpse of the frozen road-a big hand
clamped down on his shoulder and another gripped
his waist jerking him round.


THE GRAY COAT
155
"Tiens! tiens! What the"
But the little man's protest got no further.
“Ring off! Cut out the cackle! In you go!"
With one yank of the big hands Mr. Guelpa was
thrown breathless into an automobile, and his captor
crowding against him, was swiftly whirled away
down the frozen road.
His career as a scientific burglar, from begin-
ning to end, had lasted less than fifty, minutes.


THE MOUSE TRAP
157
wasted so much of this lucky day; but she had slept
late, and then it had taken hours to make the cards
come out right and decree the "meeting" and the
prosperous journey. Fortunately, she was already
dressed-except her face. When her eyes were
smudged and her lips and cheeks made presentable,
she set out.
A dozen times she had paraded that block in
Ninth Street, where she had seen George Ringgold
whisked away in an automobile, and always in vain.
She could not identify the house. Perhaps to-day
it would be different; it must be, for never did the
paste-board sybils lie; and it was.
It was.
A pleasant-looking young man smoking a cigar
iounged up to her. He took the cigar out of his
mouth and tipped his hat.
"Like this street, don't you?" he remarked eas-
ily, “or are you looking for some one?”
"On your way!" Miss Glenn retorted curtly.
"Now don't go up. It's just that I happened to
see you about here, looking as though you'd lost
something."
"My choice remark to you is—beat it."
“But suppose I can help you find it?"
Miss Glenn gave the young man the muddy look
she always had in readiness for the aggressive male,
and repeated her blunt advice.
"Not quite yet. You interest me strangely-
and not in the way you think. Got that? You're


158
MR. GUELPA
the sweet young thing that did your act the other
day in front of this house, when a taxi drove off-
and you went speeding after it. Got that? I've
been thinking about it. I'm here to think. Now
come across. What were you howling after those
friends of mine for ?"
Kittie's anti-male manner had sloughed off her
like a coat. Her eyes opened wide with eagerness.
“Your friends !!
She grabbed the young man's arm.
“You know George Ringgold!" she cried.
"Now you've got me, I see.
Sure I do. He's
the man I'm working for. Mr. George Ringgold.
So that's what you're after. Why? Spill the rest."
“I've got to see him!”
“Why?"
Miss Glenn drew on her reserve fund of dignity.
“If he's your boss," she said, "I think you had
better ask him. And now, please, give me his ad-
dress.”
“I'll do better than that. I'll take you to him.
Just wait a minute. There's a friend of mine about
here and I'll wise him up that I'm off. I'll be play-
ing the cards at that.”
The one word that really bit into Kittie's under-
standing was the word cards. Oh, they never lied.
“The king of clubs, a meeting, a prosperous jour-
ney”—a feeling of almost religious gratitude welled
up in her heart. She was dazed, like some poor or-
thodox soul who has always believed in miracles


160
MR. GUELPA
1
She checked her impulsive rush toward him, and it
was he who came forward to greet her.
“Kittie," he exclaimed, "when your name was
brought in I hardly thought it possible. And how
are you, Kittie? Take this chair."
It was not what she had expected, for she re-
membered that long ago good-by, when he had said
he would never forget; nor was it quite what he
had expected. He looked at her through his spec-
tacles and tried to remember that evening in Holly-
wood when she had given him a kind, soothing little
kiss and sent him away with the word “No” ring-
ing in his ears and despair tugging at his heart.
“Are you glad to see me, George?"
"Yes, Kittie."
She looked as though she had been going
through dire days. Her eyes were tired, her face
was drawn. She was pathetic and a pathetic Kittie
was new to him; and appealing. After all she had
once been the biggest thing in his humdrum life
before the Great Orient Insurance Company had ab-
sorbed him and his desires and ambitions.
"What's the matter, Kittie? What's hap-
pened?"
“Everything," she replied, and then to her
amazement the bluff she faced the world with so
cheekily failed her and she found herself weeping,
though she knew her face wouldn't stand for that.
She dabbed her eyes with a little wad of a hand-
kerchief. And then her story gushed out of her,


THE MOUSE TRAP
161
incoherent, extraordinary. She told him about Pete
and their engagement, of his letters and the “big
thing” he was pulling off. And listening to her,
George Ringgold experienced a queer jumble of
emotions in his usually well-behaved mind. He
perceived that there had reawakened in him the old
hungry tenderness for this troubled Kittie with the
dabbled face and the tired eyes; and that he was
rapidly acquiring a robust hatred for this Peter per-
son every time she spoke his name he experienced
a heaving sense of nausea. And above all was a
rising desire to help her out. He wanted to see her
eyes dance and hear once more her quaint up-and-
down laughter. Withal he felt rather humiliated
that these unbusinesslike emotions should have in-
vaded his dignified throne-room of the Great
Orient.
“Of course you must find him,” he said gravely,
"let me see that telegram."
She thrust it into his hand. He read it carefully
and for quite a little while he held his silence. A
thoughtful silence.
“Evidently misaddressed,” he decided at last,
"but it will not be difficult to straighten this out.
There will be no trouble. Make your mind easy,
Kittie. I shall find Mr. Peter Barling, if he is to be
found."
He reassured her.
And then his desk-telephone buzzed softly. He
spoke into it a "yes,” and “yes, sir,” and “at once."


162
MR. GUELPA
"Will you wait here a few moments, Kittie?
Now don't cry any more, please. Remember this
is a business office. I'll be back soon."
Mr. Ringgold had been summoned to Mr. Stee-
ger's office.
The old lawyer, round and sound, smoking laz,
ily his thick cigar, was in his easy chair. Near by
sat Mr. Faynis, studying through half-closed eyes
the smiling Japanese boy, Nakki, who stood hat in
hand in front of him.
“Thought you might like to hear this, Mr. Ring-
gold. Some of our people just brought this bright
gentleman in. They picked him up as he was leav-
ing the Benton house in Ninth Street. Take a
chair."
Nakki waited with bland equanimity, at his foot
was his little suit-case. Under his arm was an in-
evitable book.
"You may sit down.”
Before seating himself the little Jap bowed
gravely, and waited.
"Your name is Nakki?” Faynis began. "You
were in the employ of Mr. and Mrs. Benton, were
you not?”
“Yes, sir," Nakki replied. "Six months. And
now," he volunteered, “I am discharge by this let-
ter with bill for my payment of salary. Want to
see it, sir?"
Without waiting for a reply he took a letter
from his pocket, and with another bow handed it


THE MOUSE TRAP
163
fo Faynis; whereupon he reseated himself and
waited.
Faynis ran his eyes over the letter and then read
it aloud:
“Dear Nakki:
"I shall not be able to return home for some
time as my health is very bad and my family wishes
me to remain with them. I send you the money I
owe you and two months' extra wages instead of the
notice. I hope you will pass your examinations and
be very successful in life. Please leave the key of
the house with the landlord next door.
“With best wishes
“Bertha Benton."
“Did this letter come through the mail?”
"No, sir. It was left in the letter-box, where I
discovered it."
“There was a check?”
"No, sir, in bills of American money.
"You liked Mr. Benton, Nakki?"
“Mr. Benton was very fine man. Yes, I liked
him very much before he was dead.”
“Did he talk to you now and then?"
"No, not much. Mr. Benton very dignified
man. He said: 'Hell, Nakki, you're a good little
guy,' and he gave me two dollars. And another
time five. That was our conversation."
"What did he give you that money for, Nakki?”
“The first time it was because he was very fine


164
MR. GUELPA
man. The second time? It was for the telegram,”
he explained patiently.
“What telegram?"
“To a lady,” and fathomless guile and mascu-
line complicity were in Nakki's grin, as he added,
“Mr. Benton was married man. So he ask me to
send it, on the strict confidential. He was in feeble
illness that day. So he told me what to write and I
wrote it and sent it away. Q. T. Five dollars.”
“To what lady? Where?”
George Ringgold rose from his chair, and then
with a hurried apology resumed his business
decorum,
"Pardon me, Mr. Faynis, may I ask a ques-
tion?”
When he left Kittie in his office he had mechan-
ically carried the telegram with him.
"How was that telegram of yours signed ?” he
questioned the Jap boy.
"Oh, me. I wrote it all.”
“Yes, but what name did he tell you to sign ?"
"It was to a lady, but now Mr. Benton is dead.
That time he tell me to sign his name 'Pete.'”
"There is the telegram, Mr. Faynis,” Mr. Ring-
gold said; he had played his little part, decorously,
calmly, as an official of a great organization should
play it; but inside he was rocking with human emo-
tions-Kittie in the room near by-and Pete was
dead-and Pete was Benton-and Benton was
dead-


166
MR. GUELPA
It was a bewildered Kittie whom Ringgold fi-
nally showed into the room where the lawyers sat.
She had been told that Peter Barling, her Pete, was
dead. George had told it very gently. He had said
little else, for he knew the questioning she would
have to go through. Why should she have to suf-
fer it all twice over? And the statement that her
Pete was dead had dazed the girl. What mind she
had was absorbed in the awful revelation. Her
Pete! He was dead. And what was to become of
her? And that fleeting vision of a fortune! The
"big thing” he was to pull off-to be shared with
her. He was dead.
So she sank into a chair, too shocked to be more
than dimly aware of Faynis and the white-haired
old man by the big desk. George was with her; that
fact finally got into her mind-it steadied her.
“Can it be true Mr. Barling is dead?" she in-
quired quiveringly; even under the paint her face
showed white, "he must have been dying when he
sent for me. That's what it meant."
“I'm afraid it's true, Miss Glenn, but you are go
ing to bear up."
“Yes,” she whispered,
"Could you answer a few questions?" Faynis
was kind and sympathetic.
"Thank you.
How
long ago did Mr. Barling come east?"
“More than a year ago. He had a big deal on.
He didn't tell me, but I suppose it was the races
that's what he was. In the last letter I got from


THE MOUSE TRAP
167
him Pete said it was soon coming off. He'd have
a wad of money he wrote and it would be the wed-
ding march for us. Then his telegram came and I
went broke getting here
and he wasn't to be
found.”
Kittie seemed to be thinking aloud rather than
trying to tell her poor little story of love for the
bragging Barling with his schemes of wealth and
his red, physical, brute-magnetism that had fasci-
nated her. She concluded quite simply: “George,
Pete is dead?”
"Yes, Kittie," replied Ringgold gently, “he is
dead.”
Then as though caught by a sudden memory she
cried:
“I don't believe it. Why, in his very last letter
he told me not to believe any lies I heard about him-
even if I heard he was dead. He said he was
playing a big game, but he didn't have to die to
win.”
This outburst went without comment from the
three men, who watched her attentively, exchanging
significant glances. The silence was broken by,
Faynis:
“Miss Glenn, did you know that Mr. Barling
was living in New York under another name?"
"Pete? No. He'd have told me, wouldn't he?"
"Under the name of Richard Benton," Faynis
persisted kindly, "and that it was under the name of
Richard Benton that he was married here over a


168
MR. GUELPA
year ago-shortly after the time he left
you
in
Hollywood.”
“You mean he threw me down for another
woman! Pete! Married! George, is that true?”
“There is no doubt of it, now," Faynis con-
tinued. "He was legally married under that name,
Benton. The records prove it. He took out a life-
insurance policy at the time of his marriage under
that name. And as Benton he died."
"If he had a wife why did he send for me!" she
exclaimed, then under her emotion her native
shrewdness caught at the phrase "insurance policy."
“That's why he telegraphed for me. It was the
insurance money. He knew what a rotten trick he
had played me and wanted to square himself, so he
took out that policy in my name!”
“You are mistaken, Miss Glenn, I am sorry to
say,” Faynis explained. “He must have had quite
another motive in sending for you, because that pol-
icy is payable to his legal wife, known as Mrs. Ben-
ton. He left nothing for you."
Too many things had been poured upon poor
little Kittie; she was lost in a maze of revelations,
jealousies, griefs, angers. The only thing that
seemed real was George. It may be Faynis per-
ceived that she was at the breaking point; he sug-
gested that Ringgold should take her into his of-
fice and explain things quietly to her. She found
it hard to keep her feet as she went with George,
and once again the tears began to trickle.


170
MR. GUELPA
there was a perfectly good corpse for you to pay in.
surance on.”
"You may be right, Faynis. It looks it."
“There is no doubt that the principals in the Los
Angeles swindle are the identical same crooks who
tried to operate this one."
“I think they took a desperate chance when they
used the same woman,” remarked Faynis.
"Why not?” Steeger asked. “Years had gone
by and the other affair took place far enough
away-on the other rim of the continent. Why
break in a new woman? This one was already in
the game. It was a mere coincidence that Ringgold
should have been the claim clerk out there, should
have come on here and recognized her.”
"Well we'll get her," said Faynis confidently.
“You remember Mr. Guelpa ?”
"I would.”
"Well, he's out at Ledsky's. You know she was
traced to that house. Of course a man like Ledsky
has all sorts of queer patients—and then there are
the servants who may be implicated in trying to hide
the woman. If Mrs. Benton really went there she
must have had some purpose--"
"We've got that house watched, Faynis. We've
had two good men off and on. Now, Tim Lear, the
best of the lot is up there himself. Ledsky was
rather put out about it naturally, and he carried off
Mr. Guelpa and his entire family to try to solve the
mystery.”


THE MOUSE TRAP
171
Mr. Steeger was a friend to physical idleness.
He settled back in his comfortable chair and began
to discuss Mr. Guelpa with Faynis when his sec-
retary appeared.
"It's Mr. Lear, sir, he desired me to tell you he
has just motored in from the country and wishes to
see you.
“Let him come in.”
"He's not alone, Mr. Steeger. He told me to
say—it's very important-he thinks he's got your
man.”
"Gad! Faynis, what did I tell you? Tim Lear
is the best of the lot. Bring 'em in. Bring 'em in!”
"An arrest?” Faynis exclaimed.
"So it seems."
“Yes, and the prisoner is here,” said a quiet
voice from the doorway, and bowing, smiling-his
little black hat in his hand-Mr. Guelpa entered the
room, closing the door softly behind him.


CHAPTER XII
THE SHADOW
F
AYNIS jumped to his feet.
"You! Mr. Guelpa!"
“Yes," and the little man went chuckling to a
chair, “I am the distinguished prisoner. I was very
competently arrested.”
“What have these confounded fools of yours
been doing, Steeger ?"
"Their duty,” replied Mr. Guelpa, “only their
duty, but a trifle roughly."
He looked sorrow fully at his hat which had suf-
fered when big Tim Lear fell upon him.
Steeger was rolling about in his chair, enjoying
himself, but he said gravely: “They shall apolo-
gize."
"Indeed, no, Mr. Steeger. They did me a great
service," Mr. Guelpa continued, looking at the fat
man. "You see, I had no automobile. Professor
Ledsky and his assistant had motored in with his
car. I do not know that charming country very
well. What was I to do? I wished to see you at
once. How? Well, your detectives were there, I
discovered—they smoke strong tobacco, especially,
172


THE SHADOW
173
the vigilant man who was watching a thin place in
the hedge. I was sure he would bring me to your
office, Mr. Steeger, and I thought he must have a
motor-car near by—that would save time. So I
stepped through the hedge into his competent hands.
I preferred to make no explanations--indeed I was
not given a chance—so here I am.'
Faynis laughed.
“And none the worse for it, I hope ?”
"My hat-ah, well—the point is that I am here
and no one knows it. That was important."
Steeger turned serious.
“I am certain of that, Mr. Guelpa,” he said.
“You must pardon me for the way I took it. I was
smiling at your queer method of getting a free ride
to town. We are deeply indebted to you. Please
tell us what you have found ?”
“The box I left here, Mr. Steeger, I may have
it, please ?"
It was taken from a locked drawer and given to
him.
“Thank you. It is the cast I made of the traces
imprinted on the mantelpiece of Mrs. Benton's
room. A dust-record. It is quite plain, you see.
And here—"?
Mr. Guelpa stood up and removed his overcoat,
displaying his slim figure wrapped in a dingy gray
coat that flapped about him.
“Ouf!" he exclaimed, as he laid it on the table,
"I am glad to be out of it. It smells of another
man."


174
MR. GUELPA
He dusted himself with his gloves and twitched
up his puffy scarf.
“Ouf!” he repeated, “it is not delicate, eh? No.
It is the crime-coat. You see?"
“You mean it is the coat that left the traces re-
corded on that cast?" Steeger asked in amazement.
“Yes. That is the identical coat. I have other
proof—a fragment of the texture.
And plenty
more. But this will suffice."
“We'll take your word for that, Mr. Guelpa, of
course.”
"And this coat belongs-or did belong to Mr.
Cumber, who is the assistant of Professor Ledsky.
Now it is mine. I stole it, eh? from his room in
the house. From his clothes-closet.”
He smiled at the fat lawyer and then at the lean
one, and went on:
"Now I have more than one thing to say. You
will listen ?"
Mr. Guelpa told his story with that perfect am-
plitude of detail which left no room for inexactitude,
The outstanding statements were these:
His famous confrère, Professor Ledsky, had
already invited him and his family to his country-
place, when came the news that Mrs. Benton had
been traced to that very house. Mr. Guelpa had not
quite decided to make this visit, but after this as-
tounding disclosure the professor had virtually in-
sisted upon his acceptance, not merely as a guest but
as an investigator. And Mrs. Ledsky had been


THE SHADOW
175
equally urgent in her invitation to his wife. So he
had gone.
"Now what did I already know?” Mr. Guelpa
asked, glancing from one lawyer to the other, with
bright alert eyes.
He had learned something from the inspection
of the Narrow House the house of death. He had
found a book of verse, belonging to Mrs. Benton
a new book, which had admirably recorded her fin-
ger-tips and thumbs and of these he had already
made a poroscopic record-infallible as a means of
identification. He had hair-combings: they, too,
would make certain the identity of the woman from
whose head they had come; and more.
Then the imprints in the dust of the mantelpiece:
Mr. Guelpa pictured for them the type of man he
had visualized lounging there-a slumbrous, hulk-
ing man not tall; and showed them again the frag-
ment of tweed he had found on the splintered shelf.
Clues to a woman her hair and hands and feet.
Clues to a man-his preferred posture and attitude,
his coat.
The woman?
The man?
Mr. Guelpa explained how he had carried with
him an image of that man, lounging darkly over the
couch where Mrs. Benton lay. And, then, he had
come to Professor Ledsky's house, and against the
doorway, his secretary-Cumber-stood, loung-
ingly, leaning on his elbow. A suggestion, an im-


176
MR. GUELPA
pression, nothing more. Accompanied by Professor
Ledsky, who was equally keen on the investigation,
he had inspected every nook and corner of the
house. In Cumber's closet he had seen an old coat,
much the color seemingly of the few threads he had
found on the mantel. Suspicion? Yes, but not cer-
titude. And certitude was needed before he could
speak to Professor Ledsky about this thing which
struck so hard at his assistant-Ledsky's protégé,
whom he trusted and, in his queer way, loved.
“To-day Professor Ledsky happened to be called
to the city for an important consultation. Cumber
drove him in to town," Mr. Guelpa went on, "and
there was an opportunity to make sure, at least, of
one thing: the coat. I got possession of it by the
oldest and simplest method in the world—I stole it."
Mr. Guelpa nodded blandly.
"Forcible entry and theft. And it led to the very
certain conclusion that Cumber was a visitor to the
Benton house that he was one of the criminal con-
spirators it may be the leading one; it may be a
mere agent.”
“This evidence, Mr. Guelpa," Steeger said con-
fidently, “is going to be of the very greatest im-
portance to us, and in the name of our company I
thank you. You have proved that Cumber fre-
quented the Benton house during the period of Ben-
ton's illness and death. And while your discovery
does not take us to a final conclusion it opens the
way to it. You have one end of the thread and we


THE SHADOW
177
have another. Our reports are that Mrs. Benton
certainly entered that house. Was it to see Cumber,
her accomplice, and enlist his aid? Probably. For
by that time she
or her associates—had certainly
got some wind of our investigations. That seems
right. Now, you say you are absolutely sure she is
not in Professor Ledsky's house at the present
time."
“Quite sure."
“Well, then, how did she get away? Your es-
cape, Mr. Guelpa, was not successful because you
'did not want it to be. But before that night when
Mrs. Benton entered—the place was not watched as
it is to-day. The watchers were not set. And with
Cumber's aid she might have slipped out-even
through that hole in the hedge that aided and abet-
ted your flight, after you had committed burglary,”
and Steeger smiled. "Assume she got away. Won't
she have to keep in touch with him? Communicate
in some way? Yes. So our way to her is very
likely going to be through this man Cumber. Thus
you perceive what an immense gain your investiga-
tion is already to us."
"I can see one thing more,” Mr. Guelpa put in,
paying no heed to Steeger's praise of his efforts.
“Professor Ledsky thinks very highly of Cumber
and Cumber seems to take full advantage of this
good opinion-of affection, even. But Mrs. Led-
sky dislikes and mistrusts him. She always has, she
says. I think she reads the man intuitively far more


178
MR. GUELPA
clearly than Professor Ledsky, with all his intelli-
gence, does. He is like a man who has a dog; he is
blind to all its faults. I have no doubt that Mrs.
Ledsky thinks as we do, that Cumber was concerned
with this mysterious visit of Mrs. Benton. At first
her fear was the woman was some insane person,
and naturally she is afraid of mad people. Well, so
am I. Now she is nervous for another reason. She
fears Cumber and his connection with the woman.
Indeed she has asked us to stay on-she would like
my step daughter to remain with her, if we can not
stay. It is a lonely place. Perhaps Julie will re-
main. If her mother consents."
“And you, Mr. Guelpa ?"
“No, no, that is impossible. I have too much to
do. I must get back to town. But my step-daughter
would enjoy herself. They are having a dance out
there this afternoon. I, by the way, am supposed
to be taking a walk or working hard in the labora-
tory. But I can not possibly extend my visit. I
shall do what I can—for your sake, Mr. Faynis, and
yours, sir—but I really must get on with the work
I came to do here in New York. I shall remain in
the city to-night, however, and perhaps to-morrow,
in case you wish to consult with me. I shall be at
my hotel, and I am wholly at your service, sir, and
that of my friend, Mr. Faynis.” And Mr. Guelpa
bowed and smiled.
Steeger got up; it was to choose a cigar from
his box,


THE SHADOW
179
“How about the little girl, Faynis? You see,"
he went on, turning toward Mr. Guelpa, "we too
have not been idle, as the young folks say. Any-
way Ringgold has not been idle. And he has
turned up a trump. A bright little card."
“Yes, Mr. Guelpa, I was about to tell you the
latest developments of the Benton case," remarked
Faynis, “first the little Japanese boy, Nakki and
then Miss Kittie Glenn."
“Tiens! tiens!”
"We have just found out a good deal about
Richard Benton, alias Peter Barling."
“Tiens! tiens! tiens!"
Concisely enough Faynis related how Miss Kittie
Glenn had come into the case. First her acquaintance
with George Ringgold while he was in Los Angeles;
her engagement to one Peter Barling or Benton;
then the telegram which Benton had sent her,
through the Japanese boy, signed Petema telegram
that had brought her to New York. All this had
definitely established the fact that Benton and Bar-
ling were one and the same man.
“Definitely?" Mr. Guelpa asked quizzically,
"perhaps. But a good deal of it depends, does it
not, upon the girl. May I see her?”
“She is waiting in Mr. Ringgold's office," said
Mr. Steeger, “I'll send for them. We didn't plumb
her very deeply."
It was a tranquillized Miss Glenn who reentered.
She had been leaning on George Ringgold's steady,


180
MR. GUELPA
kindliness, and she had absorbed strength and calm
from it. Moreover she had found time to make
up her pretty face again according to Hollywood
standards of what is really proper for a nice young
girl. Her lips were red once more, the rose paint
ran evenly over her cheeks, and her luring eyes were
daintily smudgy. And in addition to all this her
keen practical common sense had taken her in hand.
Tears were all very well in their place. What she
had to think of now was herself and a meal-ticket.
Pete had been a rotter; he had done her dirt. And
already Miss Glenn had discovered that she had been
a victim not of love, but fascination. Like Mary
Ann.
“It was just another of those damn infatua-
tions," she had told herself.
Not love, but the thing that masquerades as love
for a poor girl and is always tripping her up. Pro-
fessor Ledsky, had he been there to study her psy-
chic process, would have informed her that what
masquerades as love is merely a manifestation of the
nerves at the base of the spine; and getting over it
breaks no hearts. In her own intuitive way Kittie
knew as much as science knows. Well; Pete had
certainly done her dirt, Miss Glenn decided, and she
was going to take care of herself. George had got
on tremendously in the world-in his office he
looked like something on a throne.
Therefore comforted and keen of wit, looking
for ways to assist George in this dark case of his


THE SHADOW
181
in which she seemed to herself to be vastly impor-
tant, she faced Mr. Guelpa. She sat up straight,
both hands on the red vanity case in her lap, her
feet on the floor and well apart—which is, for a
woman, a declaration that she is ready to tell the
truth and hide nothing.
Mr. Guelpa praised her, a little smile of elderly
admiration playing amid his wrinkles and lifting
his purple-dyed mustache.
“You have helped us very much,” he began. “It
is extraordinary how you have worked this out-
what valuable information you have given us. Ex-
tremely valuable."
Kittie decided that what was valuable must be
worth money; she began to be fond of the smiling
little man.
The facts he had obtained from the lawyers he
put to her now in a picturesque way that thrilled
her like a moving-picture in which she might be
watching herself battle with infamy and mysterious
crime-she would be in white with real glycerine
tears welling from her eyes.
"It was your telegram that proved Peter Barling
and Richard Benton were one-the same man. A
man of an evil past. He had deceived and aban-
doned you to marry another woman. A sad bad
thing, Miss Glenn.'
Kittie saw it was tragic.
“And the letter you mentioned. May I read
it?"


182
MR. GUELPA
He was
Kittie took Pete's last letter from her vanity.
case and handed it to Mr. Guelpa, who read it care-
fully.
“Yes, the letter shows he was deep in some
swindle. What? to swindle this company.
“But ah, Miss Glenn! When he wrote he did
not have to die to win, he revealed the fact-can
you see it now?—that a dead man was to be put in
his place and quickly cremated? That would cover
up the substitution."
"My Gawd!" Kittie exclaimed dramatically;
this was drama indeed. Her heart began to
pound.
“Now, why did he send for you?
married and insured in favor of his wife. Shall
I tell you why he telegraphed for you to come?
Suddenly he had realized he would have to die and
lose; that his accomplices were playing him false.
Of course he could expect no help from them. He
was in their power. And so he wired you in a
last desperate chance that you could save him. He
meant to reveal the plot to you, in order that you
might stand between him and the men who were
doing him to death in order to obtain his share of
the insurance money.
That share he was de-
termined to blackmail them into giving you.
If
they refused, you could betray them. And then
there was the other motive.
He might cheat them
after all and live if you came and got him away
from them and their deadly drugs. He could
1


THE SHADOW
183
trust you.
He could not trust his wife. What
do you think?"
Kittie was beyond thinking.
"That is the way I explain the telegram,” Mr.
Guelpa went on.
"A nice woman to throw me down for," said
Kittie bitterly.
"Yes, that woman was in the swindle with him,
it may be, or the other man or men—for there
must have been other men who decided that he
should be the corpse.
It would have been a very
dangerous—if not impossible—thing to have ob-
tained a real corpse.
Barling of a sudden realized
this. He knew it."
Mr. Guelpa was close to her, his eyes blinking at
her dazed face; and his voice sank to the note of
horror.
So he sent you that desperate appeal-se-
cretly--to come and help him—too late. He died.
Miss Glenn, the terrible wrong that man did you-
his deception and desertion-has been avenged!
Had you arrived in time he might have confessed
all—betrayed his associates—and so lived, though in
a felon's cell. It was not to be. His punishment
was death."
Kittie saw herself that way-a victim; caught
up in a terrible drama of betrayal and murder and
vengeance. She dabbed at her eyes with a wad of
handkerchief. And Peteher Pete—the villain!
It was terrifying and real. Pete the villain of it?


184
MR. GUELPA
"I know he did me dirt-I mean an injury," she
corrected herself. “But he did not look like that.”
"Like what?" Mr. Guelpa asked quickly.
"Like the villain. See"
From the red vanity she took out a snap-shot
photograph and held it out to Mr. Guelpa.
"It is a picture of him. He sent it to me some
months ago," she explained, "and the lady with him.
That's his sister."
Mr. Guelpa studied the picture for a while and
then, without a word, handed it to Steeger.
“Do you recognize the man?"
“Certainly. It's Benton. I saw him here at
the time the policy was approved.”
“And you, Mr. Ringgold?”
“That woman, Mr. Guelpa, was not his sister.
She was his wife. It is Mrs. Benton."
“No-his sister !” Kittie cried sharply. "Pete
said it was!"
No one answered her protest.
“So that is Benton's photograph," Ringgold
went on. “I was having my vacation when the policy
was taken out, anyway I would not have seen him
here, I dare say. But I have certainly met him
somewhere.
Yes, now I remember, it was in the
office of the insurance company in Los Angeles.
He was with Mrs. Forsythe, as she was known to
us out there, when her husband, Forsythe, took out
his insurance in that company. I recognize the
man."
"He did not pose as her husband there?"


THE SHADOW
185
"No, no.
He was nothing like him. But he
went about with Mrs. Forsythe and I frequently saw
them together.”
“So that is Mrs. Benton," observed Mr. Guelpa,
"the elusive Mrs. Benton. And the man is Benton.
May I have the photograph again, please? And
may I keep it for a day or two, Miss Glenn? Thank
you. And now-gentlemen-I must withdraw.
I must telephone my wife that I shall not return
to Professor Ledsky's to-night."
“My car is outside, Mr. Guelpa,” said Faynis,
"tell the man to drive you to your hotel. Wait-I'll
go down with you.”
"Do not trouble, my friend. I know the car.
I can find it.
Thank you."
With this remark Mr. Guelpa shook hands all
round, in the affable French way, beginning with
Miss Glenn and ending with Mr. Ringgold. Then
he took up his hat, stared at it reproachfully, and,
bowing to every one, departed.
In the elevator he was very dignified and grave;
he looked like some dainty little sexagenarian who
was successfully keeping young and pondering deep
affairs of business. Without much trouble he
found the Faynis car on the side-street where it
usually hung off and on for its master. The chauf-
feur knew him and opened the door.
The car
crept through the traffic making for a clear street
and it was only when he had put himself at ease in
the corner and lighted a cigarette, that Mr. Guelpa
chuckled his eternal: "Tiens! Tiens!" It was his


186
MR. GUELPA
way of permitting himself to announce (entirely to
himself) that he was brimming with satisfaction.
He took from his pocket the photograph of Benton
and the woman and looked at it with triumphant
eyes.
Yes, it was there.
It was there.
The shadow!
He remembered when he first alighted at the
door of Professor Ledsky's house something had
printed itself upon his infallible memory.
It was
an old, old tree, with one gaunt and crooked limb
thrust out as though pointing to the door of the
house, and announcing :
“Yes, here it is."
And across the photograph he held in his hand-
this picture of Benton and his wife—there fell the
shadow of the crooked branch.
The house was not in the snap-shot. But there
the shadow lay, pointing to an invisible door, as
though to say:
“Yes, it is just over there—there's the door of
the house."
“Tiens! Tiens!" murmured Mr. Guelpa, "so the
two of them the dead man and his wife were
photographed on the lawn of Ledsky's country
house. And some one in that house took the photo-
graph."
“Who?"
The answer was obvious. It must have been
taken by the professor's assistant: that man Cumber,


CHAPTER XIII
EVE IN THE GARDEN
TH
lied
ners.
THE impromptu dance Mrs. Ledsky got up for
Julie was quite a success. She had rallied
a goodly lot of boys and girls, with casual matrons
who sharpened their French on Mrs. Guelpa, when
they were not stealing their daughters' dancing-part-
The presence of the half-dozen representa-
tives of the last generation, as well as the fact that
Professor Ledsky's wine cellar was under lock and
key, led to decorum and did not banish gaiety.
Marian Netley alone was enough to set off the
fire-works. She was a blithe and precocious child,
born with a desire to upset the equanimity of things.
She fastened on Paul Dupuis who had come
with the Emorys.
A tall youth was Paul, slim and solemn, with
defensive eyes and a lot of light brown hair heaved
back over his head and falling on his neck. He
was very dignified, impressively polite in his French
way-which was the way of the scion of the old
French Protestant family, dating back to Coligny.
Of late his family had become more interested in
finance than religious warfare, and Paul's father,
187


188
MR. GUELPA
was the great Parisian banker-a cold lean man,
quite as dignified as Paul himself. To his horror
he had one day discovered that Paul was more in-
terested in his soul than in Protestant banking.
Paul had developed high ideals. He aspired. He
put himself on a diet of cold boiled rice in order to
give his soul a fair chance. And he let his hair
grow. This was the youth the banker had sent to
New York to forget all that sort of thing and learn
something of the banker's art and craft in the bank
of Monsieur Dupius' New York correspondent.
As Paul's mother had been an American-one of
the Greens of Philadelphia-he spoke English well
enough, though he was readier in French.
He had little small-talk; he was too busy with
his own important thoughts about the universe
which revolved round him and was, even to him,
fairly mysterious. On this subject he could let
If he were alone he put it in prose or
verse. To a sympathetic listener he poured it out
in darkling eloquence. That is what had happened
on the ship.
He had told Julie all about the problems that
lay about them both he had told her of his soul-
And Julie, pacing the deck at the side of this
tall boy, with the hair, had listened, listened—this
torrent of youthful egoism sounded to her like love.
Perhaps it was, but Julie, like a loyal step-daughter,
knew more of criminology than she did of love.
Anyway Paul's soul rolled over her and submerged
himself go.
1


EVE IN THE GARDEN
189
her. She used to dream of him, of course which
must have been very much like dreaming of a
phonograph-and he was the first man she had
ever dreamed of in her safe eighteen years.
Marian, in blue rags, dragged her up to him.
"Here's Merely Me again.
And of course you
know Paul. Here he is.”
Mary Ann was dragging at his arm, which
spoiled his Parisian bow and prevented him from
kissing Julie's hand, but his soulful eyes looked full
in her eyes and for both of them it was a moment of
sudden communion-and confession.
And Mary Ann clung.
It was fortunate for them that Mrs. Ledsky was
a hostess of infinite wisdom and tact. She deftly
got the squealing Mary Ann enclosed in the arms of
a boy who could really dance.
Paul and Julie were alone.
They found a place on the settle in the hall.
And Paul spoke gravely:
"Miss Julie, I am not betrothed.”
"Oh!” murmured Julie softly.
“I have found much to study in this country,” he
went on, "youth is very unreflective here. When
Miss Marian told me she was engaged to me, I
was extremely perturbed. I thought of my par-
ents and of myself. But I have never yet been
in a situation where my reason failed to find a
solution—a way out.
With honor."
“But, Monsieur Dupuis—her parents"


190
MR. GUELPA
"I questioned her father. He was so agitated
that he laughed from pure hysteria. Then I spoke
to her mother. She was very kind. She said
there was nothing to it-whatsoever. That Marian
was merely frushing me"
“What does that mean?"
"She had gone crazy about me. She herself
confessed it, poor girl. It seems to be a way
American girls have. So she rushed me. But
her mother assured me it would not last, and that
the child—she is only a child and I think of her as
still a child-would not be heartbroken if this mad
dream of hers soon came to an end and would not
be rewarded by marriage. I thanked God for that,
for I would not act dishonorably even if I were to
be made unhappy forever. At one time I feared
that in her despair she might kill herself—she said
she was just dying for me. I could not have such
a sin on my soul. Thank Heaven, Miss Julie, it
is just an American way—it is some sort of girlish
game-rushing a man' and, though I can not ap-
prove of it, it has some pleasant accompaniments."
“Paul!" Julie called him that for the first time,
"that girl kissed you!"
"Julie, you do not understand American social
life. That is the flirt-it is rushing it—and it
leaves a man's character, if he is as steady as I am,
untouched. I yield to social observances of the
country. It is a gentleman's duty. But my soul
is above it. Serene, in its 'Ivory Tower.'”


EVE IN THE GARDEN
191
The soul of Julie was not so serene. A little
hereditary anger-after all, she was her mother's
daughter-showed in her usually placid eyes.
“I have heard enough. Suppose you come and
dance with me," she spoke firmly.
“You know I do not care for that,” he returned
gravely, “but if you insist—if you really wish—"
Decidedly Julie wished, and they swung out on
the dancing-floor, and the jazzy tumult caught at
their feet. It was a defiant and glorious Julie who
did this thing. A lamp had been lit within her
and her beauty glowed.
Then other partners
snatched at her. Paul stalked toward her in vain.
But Mrs. Ledsky saw to it that he danced with
several girls. Even Mary Ann, who wilted in his
arms and whispered she would be faithful to him
forever. Paul's soul was hurting him. At last
he got away.
He found his overcoat and slipped
out into the afternoon garden and paced the wintry
path. Alone. He was thinking of Julie and their
walks up and down the long decks of the steamer-
and of many other things. But always his thoughts
came back to her. Had she, too, begun"rushing"?
The mere idea gave him an interior ferment of dis-
gust. A dark and solemn hour though the sun
shone brightly. He leaned against the Emory
motor-car in which he had come. An attitude of
stern sorrow.
And to him, across the frozen path, came a
golden Julie—her blonde tousled hair, her blonde


192
MR. GUELPA
fur coat half covering the blonde gown; she made
a womanly approach by asking: "What are you
doing out here in the cold?"
He told her he was indifferent to heat and cold;
he had mastered such trifles.
"I am going back to Paris," he announced.
“But your work? The bank? What will
your parents say?"
"Well, I mean in the spring.”
“Oh, quite a lovely coincidence. So are we.”
Paul lived up to his sense of dignity and was
silent. Julie found tongue:
"I'm so glad we are going to stay.
I don't like
the hotel, but I love it out here. I love Mrs. Ledsky.
We are friends. And she is the very first real
friend I ever had—I mean grown up. She has
asked fa-ather to let me stay on for a visit. Mother
has said yes. So I'm sure."
"I am sorry not to have been able to present my
respects to Mr. Guelpa,” remarked Paul politely.
"He's working as usual. He's over there in
Professor Ledsky's laboratory. But he'll come
soon. He knows you are to be here. I told him
and he liked you so much on shipboard; and you
know you and the Emorys are to stay on for dinner."
Paul had begun to forget his own importance
even his masterful soul; he looked at Julie's flushed
face—her eyes were those of a huntress. Suddenly
he grinned, like the boy he was, underneath all that
ponderous weight of his ego.


EVE IN THE GARDEN
193
"Julie, come round here-behind the car.”
"What is it?" The warrior went out of her
eyes.
“Come," and she followed, it may be because he
dragged her along by the arm. When they were
hidden behind the big car Paul suddenly caught her
in his arms and kissed her. It was no unpractical
kiss at that; it was a wild deep kiss that ran fierce-
ly through her from head to foot and then gathered
itself up and coiled round her heart and lay there,
panting, soft and warm.
"Mon Dieu!” She gasped when she could find
voice, "You are rushing me, I think!"
It was quite true; he had rushed her.
He was
abashed when he realized it.
"Julie, may I ask permission of your parents ?
May I tell them I want you to be my wife? May
I?”
“But your parents, Paul?"
“Of course.
Oh, Julie! Julie!"
That meant he was looking at her and finding
her beautiful.
"Stand quite still. No. Over there. The
light is better. Not under that tree.
Just there."
Paul, who had been taking snap-shots as they
drove out, snatched up
his camera from the
Emorys' car. He snapped off a picture of Julie
as she stood there in the garden.
“Now you take one of me,” he said.
Julie glanced round furtively; they were quite


194
MR. GUELPA
alone. From the house jazz poured but no eyes
looked out. Swiftly they changed places, and Julie
took a photograph.
"Oh, Paul!"
"Just for you and me.”
“We must go in quick. I'll go first." And
Julie sped away.
When Paul had put back his kodak, he walked
to and fro readjusting his mask of dignity. For-
ever, he was telling himself. Well, marriage was
the divine and human ordeal of the man who would
do his duty by his soul. And love. The divine
spark.
He glanced up at the tree with the crooked arm,
pointing to the house that held his chosen one.
Being deep in the occult significance of things the
young philosopher had thought at first it was not
a good tree-warped and aged as a sorcerer.
He
deemed it might be even a devil-tree, of which, alas!
there are far too many scattered over the world.
Now he saw that, though aged, it was beneficent.
It stood like a guard, decrepit but valiant, over the
house that sheltered his love.
Gravely he went back to the jazz and laughter
and the ices and wineless-cup and the cakes and tea
and such trivial things; and to Julie—the apricot
girl.
In the hall Mrs. Ledsky met him smiling. She
had witnessed some of the little scene in the garden.
She smiled, but it was a smile of pure sympathy.


EVE IN THE GARDEN
195
and delight for no woman can touch even the hem
of love—the first joyous love of youth-without
thrilling to it.
"I am going to put you next to Julie to-night at
dinner,” she whispered as she passed.
There Alva Spiller, the housekeeper, awaited
her.
“Cumber's back, ma'am,” Alva said harshly,
with eyes full of smoldering animosity.
Mrs. Ledsky knew there was no love lost be-
tween the two, but she wondered a little at this mani-
festation of it.
“Very well,” she replied.
"He wants to give you a message?”
“Go and find out what it is, please, Alva."
"I know. He told me. It's the professor
wanted you to know he has been called to Philadel-
phia on an important consultation. He won't be
back for a day or two. He said he wished you
could persuade the French people to remain and
keep you company. That's all."
"I think there is something else, Alva. What
is it.
Tell me.”
"Oh, it's that Cumber accusing me of unlocking
his door and leaving it open.
How could I when
he had the key?”
"Never mind, Alva. Don't pay any attention
to him."
“I don't. He isn't worth it."
Mrs. Ledsky hoped the Guelpas would stay on;


196
MR. GUELPA
She was
they must; especially Julie, Julie—and her young
vision of love.
And in the dance-room she found that hitherto
demure maiden, without a word to say for herself,
bright-eyed and laughing, refusing dances, drink-
ing the cold "cup," and accepting invitations from
maids and matrons for other social events. The
little chicken was out of her shell and liked it.
Mrs. Guelpa extracted herself from the mazes
of Mrs. Emory's French conversation.
beginning to be domestically displeased with her
Jules-Marie, hiding himself away in the laboratory.
To her thoughts, already darkening into anger, was
added a feeling of surprise that he should be guilty
of such a social lapse. It was quite unlike him.
Then there appeared Mrs. Ledsky telling her Mr.
Guelpa was telephoning her from New York. The
good lady was now somewhat alarmed.
“But how did he get there? What is he doing
there? Without a word to me or to-you.
I
thought he was in the laboratory working.”
Mrs. Guelpa, without waiting for a reply to her
questions, hastened to the telephone.
Clear and soothing there came to her the voice
of Mr. Guelpa.
"Be calm, my dear," the voice said, “it is
Jules-Marie speaking. And I am sorry I must
miss the party and the dinner. But circumstances
arose which demanded my immediate presence in
town. Yes, yes, I am at the hotel
..


EVE IN THE GARDEN
197
Yes. .
.
Never mind how I got here. I shall explain when I
see you. I can not come out until to-morrow, or the
next day, then I shall bring you in with me.
Certainly.
I am sure I should be
delighted for Julie to stay on for a little longer. . .
Yes, I know. It is Mrs. Ledsky's kind wish. And,
Hortense, when the professor gets home, present my
excuses and tell him I am busy on the 'case.' He
will understand. I am working in his interests.
Yes. And present my excuses to Mrs. Ledsky.
Then to-morrow or next day I will come for you.
Good-by, my dear.”
And before Mrs. Guelpa could say many things
that would have been an education for her errant
husband, the communication was cut.
She caught Julie out of the leave-taking in the
hall and started to transfer her feelings regarding
Mr. Guelpa to her child. Suddenly she checked.
She stared at her offspring incredulously. What
new triumphant personality was this, radiating
through the tranquil and demure Julie, actually
making inconsequential remarks about an unknown
“him.'
“Mother, he's dining here to-night. And to-
morrow there's a lot of us going on a motor-trip.
And I'm to be in his car. And, mother, he's going
to Paris on the same boat we take. 'And, mother,
he's going to speak to fa-ather-I mean to you and
fa-ather-perhaps to-night!"
The guests who were not remaining to dinner,
.


198
MR. GUELPA
left. It was not until that was over that Mrs.
Guelpa got her daughter to herself.
“Come to our room, Julie. Oh, I am sure
Mrs. Ledsky will excuse you for she knows you
need a little rest before dinner."
As they went up-stairs Mrs. Guelpa spoke—the
voice was motherly and good-saying: "Come, you
must tell me about it."
Julie shrank into herself, for her mother was
a terrifying darling. She clung to thoughts of
Paul. Mon Dieu !he had rushed her!
And meanwhile that tall youth, having first
had a delightfully intimate talk with his fair hostess,
had again gone out into the garden. He was hat-
less. He stared up into the darkening sky-en-
raptured. Then the great deformed tree caught
his attention. A strange tree, formidable. Gaunt
and naked it rose pointing always at the stone
house. He went close to it. In the trunk he dis-
covered a gnarled hole that went back a dozen inches
The need of doing romantic things, which
is love's compelling need, woke in him. He would
tell Julie of that hiding-place. It should be their
letter-box. Their secret. And to-morrow he
would leave there for her the snap-shots—his pho-
tograph for her. To-night, at dinner, he would let
her into the secret of their hiding-place.
He backed away, glancing up at the tall tree
that stood, pointing always at the stone house. No
devil-tree. Their love would sanctify it. And
or so.


EVE IN THE GARDEN
199
yet somehow-in some obscure way—it seemed
now, as he saw it in the darkening evening light, it
appeared to be making with its crooked arm a ges-
ture of menace. Of destiny. Almost it was as
though it were creaking out vague words, as its lean
branches tossed and touched; vague warnings as
though they were saying:
“House of darkness-house of evil-"
Paul's young exultant love laughed at fore-
bodings.
How should he know that he like souls more
desperate and tragic-had been snared in the web
of mystery woven round the disappearance of Ber-
tha Benton?
How should he know?


ARIADNE'S THREAD
201
odor of love and musk. Patiently now he was hunt-
ing down the crime, marshaling those indestructible
proofs that are always imprinted upon material
things—the faint but eternal footprints of crime.
This kind of proof, Mr. Guelpa said, is in the first
place indicative. It proceeds from a technical
study based on observation, hypothesis, experimenta-
tion and reasoning by analogy. The footprints
of crime point out the way to a certitude physical
rather than moral. And that the crime may be
weighed in the balance of justice these material
indications must be interpreted and only the expert
criminologist can read them aright.
Bent over his broad table in the sitting-room of
his hotel, Mr. Guelpa was studying the indices of
his proofs.
There they lay.
And they called upon all the expert knowledge
that made of him the perfected criminologist. His
profession had transformed him into many men in
He had the intelligent gift of observation,
experience, prudence and the imagination that vis-
ualizes the true hypothesis; that was Mr. Guelpa;
but in addition he had to be other men, chemist and
medico-legal expert, toxicologist, graphologist,
police-expert—and each of these experts worked
with him to establish what his finer faculties had
hypothesized.
There they lay on his table-the threads of Ari-
adne the material threads.
one.


202
MR. GUELPA
“Parfait! C'est parfait !”
Mr. Guelpa was pleased with himself and with
his work.
Hours passed as he bent over the absorbing
problems which the Benton case presented, compar-
ing, computing, deducting-
“And now for the human equation," he said,
glancing at his watch, "now for the receptive and
yet revealing light human testimony throws upon
the little facts, pebbles of matter.”
Watch in hand he waited.
If one is late for an appointment—or too early~
that means something; it reveals the man him-
self. It was ten minutes before the appointment
when a knock came at the door. The page-boy,
presented a card.
"Doctor Hamilton, by appointment, sir.”
"Bring him up, please."
Mr. Guelpa liked the impatience which had
spurred Doctor Hamilton to this appointment ten
minutes before due time. He had made up his
mind about this big bluff physician; he had gone
behind the exterior boisterousness and seen honesty,
sincerity and a kind-heartedness that blustered be-
cause it was half ashamed of its very sensitiveness.
And he knew they had one aim in common—to find
Mrs. Benton. Why Mr. Guelpa wanted to find her
was plain enough; hers was the odor of murder-
musk. He rather fancied Doctor Hamilton's mo-
tives were mixed-care for his professional honor


ARIADNE'S THREAD
203
and repute-perhaps an emotional element entered
into it-protectiveness-his truculent need of de-
fending weak things, especially when they are hunt-
ed-Love-
Mr. Guelpa was no fool about love. He took
it into account. Like everything good or bad,
human or divine, it might be an important factor in
a “case.” Before sending for Doctor Hamilton he
had let his imagination run. It was a way of his.
He slipped into the other man's skin and tried to ab-
sorb the motives that seemed to be driving on this
man of headlong impulse. He got it something
like this:
The doctor was not a woman's man-he had
seen too many of them inside and out; they were
mere patients or corpses—and what he knew of
them had stripped him of the illusions of love. He
was still a man in his prime and so he had gone on
But the heart must love something.
Even the worst man loves something—even if it is
only himself. And Doctor Hamilton had carried
gunpowder in his heart as he went about his busi-
ness.
Then the woman? This Mrs. Benton?
The doctor had seen her often, there in the dim-
ly lighted room, where she crouched in the big
chair, near her dying husband. It is thus he
would see her, desolate, with apathetic eyes-some-
thing white-faced, hiding in reticence, in moral
loneliness. The mere sadness of it all—the tragedy
for years.


ARIADNE'S THREAD
205
clue that might lead to her discovery. He had
interviewed Benton's sporting friends, Nakki, the
landlord of the Narrow House, the tradespeople, even
Luella, the brown cook-nothing.
“I sure saw the cawpse, but I don't know nuthen
about Mrs. Benton,” she said and wagged her ma-
hogany head.
He had seen Ringgold. Nothing. He had
written letter after letter to the authorities and medi-
cal men of that mythical town in which she said she
had been born, only to meet the same failure that
had dogged his efforts from first to last.
And now Mr. Guelpa had summoned him—it
was virtually a summons. Something more about
the death certificate and be damned to him! Angina
Pectoris. Well, so far as his professional judg-
ment went, that had been the cause of Benton's
death True it had surprised him—this sudden
taking off.
He had not expected it.
He was
willing to admit that he had been surprised. But
suspect foul play? Why should he ? Or any sane
man? He wished the authorities would come at
him in the open.
He'd like to have it out with
them. Only—there was the woman. A fugitive.
Suffering God knows what agony from her base-
less fears of these law-dogs. And Mr. Guelpa
was the worst of them.
This was the mood in which Doctor Hamilton
entered Mr. Guelpa's sitting-room, but he kept his
aggressiveness and his emotion under cover, and


206
MR. GUELPA
his manner was cold and dignified. He towered
over the little man who came smilingly to meet
him. They shook hands. Before taking the
proffered chair the doctor asked curtly:
"Well, have you found Mrs. Benton?"
Mr. Guelpa threw out his expressive hands in a
gesture that took away all hope.
“Ah, Doctor Hamilton, I wish I had. "And
you?
I hoped you might have had some news of
her by this time."
“I have no news. You seem to have frightened
her away among you. You see I include you, Mr.
Guelpa. I admit that money is a strong motive."
Mr. Guelpa answered this remark very quietly,
but those who knew him best would have been on
their guard.
“I think that is a personal remark aimed directly
at me, Doctor. Please understand I am not paid
for what I am doing. In my professional capacity
I am assisting my friend, Mr. Faynis, in this case.
I am also anxious to be of service to my colleague,
Professor Ledsky. What we are looking for is
the truth and I have been looking for it in every
cranny of minds, souls, and bodies for over thirty
years. You are after the truth, also, I am certain.
That is why I claim your assistance." The amicable
smile reappeared on Mr. Guelpa's old-young face,
and he added, “For our interest in this case is the
same.'
“To find Mrs. Benton?"


ARIADNE'S THREAD
207
"Precisely. And I do not think anything has
happened to her.
She will reappear.”
Doctor Hamilton did not speak.
“We are helping each other? You absolve me
from any wrong motive? The truth. And I am
going to tell you what we have found out, so far.
I want to find Mrs. Benton, to dissipate the mystery
surrounding her and clear up the insurance swindle
in which she unquestionably is involved. Above
all, as I just observed, I desire to render a service
to my fellow-scientist, Professor Ledsky, of whom
you no doubt have heard."
"Certainly I have heard of him. Who has
not?”
“Well this is why I mention him. When Mrs.
Benton slipped away from the Narrow House she
was followed by detectives. She took refuge
where? In the most unlikely place in the world-in
Professor Ledsky's country house."
"What!" Doctor Hamilton exclaimed, startled
out of his self-imposed calm.
“Our men never lost her trail; they followed her
there, saw her enter the house, and swear she never
left it. Do I believe them? When I reached the
house in company with Professor Ledsky—he was
frankly incredulous—she had at all events disap-
peared once more.”
"The detectives may have been mistaken in
thinking she entered there."
“Always possible—the human error. The evi-


ARIADNE'S THREAD
209
ton was known in Los Angeles as Peter Barling;
and that Bertha Benton was Beth Forsythe.
Doctor Hamilton held himself in hand. If Mr.
Guelpa had counted on an outbreak he misjudged
this big man, usually so forthright and blusteringly
open; Doctor Hamilton might have been a Sphinx
for all the emotion he showed as the crime-record of
the woman he loved was revealed.
That be damned. It was part of all this law-
doggery. His great generous heart told him she
was innocent.
A victim, perhaps, but innocent-in-
nocent.
So when he spoke it was in a matter-of-fact
way.
"Is that all you have got against her ?”
"Not quite. And this is where we can help each
other,” Mr. Guelpa leaned forward, speaking softly.
"Please tell me, Doctor Hamilton, who was the man
who went so often to her home, during the fatal ill-
ness of her husband?”
"Man? What man?"
“Who came so often. Who lounged with easy
familiarity in her bedroom—"
“What!”
“In her bedroom, leaning on the mantelpiece,
looking down at her while she lay on her couch lis-
tening-listening—to his slow voice !"
Hamilton's self-control might have snapped at
this suggestion, but he held it fast.
"I saw no one there."


210
MR. GUELPA
“The nurse?"
"She saw no one there."
“The thick-set man, in dingy gray, a flabby,
man-
"How the devil should I know what you mean!
I tell you there was no such man in her house."
And Doctor Hamilton began to kindle and raise an
angry voice. "What kind of a beastly scandal are
you trying to build up round that poor woman now v?
Mrs. Benton had no visitors. She was, God help
her, an utter stranger in New York. I know that
for a fact. The nurse who was there for several
weeks will tell you the same thing. Except Nurse
McCune and myself there was no one in this city to
stand by her. Is that clear?”
"Quite clear, Doctor."
"Why don't you question Mrs. McCune? I can
tell you where she is.”
"That has already been done. She knows
nothing."
“Of course not. Because there is nothing to be
known. There is no such man."
"No? You are very loyal to Mrs. Benton-your
patient, was she not?”
“No. Her husband was my patient.”
"At all events it will interest you to know," Mr.
Guelpa said, shooting out the words, “I have found
'that man. Eh? Now you wake up! Yes, the
flabby man in the dingy coat, eh? Will you come
here a moment—to that big table?"


ARIADNE'S THREAD
211
Almost in spite of himself Doctor Hamilton fol-
lowed the urgent little man to the center of the
room:
“You see.
There there on the table is the old
coat I am speaking of. Now beside it-you see that
cast? You know all about that sort of thing?"
Doctor Hamilton stared silently at Mr. Guelpa's
exhibit, which he had brought with him from the
lawyer's office and which was now spread out on
the table with the cast.
“Certainly, I know,” he grunted.
“I am glad, for then I shall only be obliged to
give you a few details to make myself clear. That
is the cast of the imprint of this coat sleeve in the
dust, which lay on the mantelpiece in Mrs. Benton's
bedroom. Traced in the dust, the imprint might
have been blown away by a breath; but it remained;
and now it is solid as—matter, permanent, eh? It
tells the story of the man who leaned, lounging in
Mrs. Benton's bedroom, while her husband lay dy-
ing—waiting? Watching? For what?"
"You can actually prove that those marks were
made by that coat?"
“See for yourself. The thread marks are as in-
dividual as the pores in the skin of your hand. They
are not merely like each other. They are duplicates.
That is a way matter has to be as individual as a
Those imprints were made by that
sleeve. And now," Mr. Guelpa lifted daintily the
tweed threads he had found in a tiny splintered
human ego.


212
MR. GUELPA
channel of the old wooden mantelpiece, "now I show
you something else, eh? This is a fragment of the
same coat. I, oh, I have proved it, Doctor. Not
only by the texture, but the very dirt in it, human
and material, was brother to the dirt of the coat.
But you do not want the process. You know that.
You want the fact. And the man? Just a little
thread, eh? But it led me to him. Like Ariadne's
thread. It is strong, Doctor, very strong—I really
think this little thread is strong enough to hang a
man by the neck until he is dead."
“You say you have actually found this man?”
“Now mark who he is. He is in Ledsky's serv-
ice. You see? Half laboratory assistant, half serv-
ant, I should say. There I found him?"
“And what does Ledsky think?"
"I have not told him yet. He does not know.
He believes in this fellow, Cumber, although his
wife, Mrs. Ledsky, does not; indeed she agrees with
me that the professor has been deceived in him and
that he is not to be trusted. We believe he effected
Mrs. Benton's escape, concealed her in Professor
Ledsky's house unknown to the family, and then
contrived somehow to spirit her away.”
"And since then," Doctor Hamilton asked, "no
trace of her has been found?”
“None."
The doctor hesitated before putting a question
which he feared betrayed too much of his anxiety.
"You do not think the man, this Cumber, has
made way with her?”


ARIADNE'S THREAD
213
"That might be a possibility, but I do not see
Cumber that way. He has neither the courage
nor the extreme cowardice-to kill any one.
I
believe he has hidden her, yes. And through him
we may get trace of her and the other men involved
in the swindle."
Mr. Guelpa was studying his man–the quick re-
actions—his body-hid emotions; he wondered how
much Mrs. Benton knew of the impression she had
made upon the truculent and chivalrous physician;
had they been drawn closer together than the doctor
was inclined to admit?
"Doctor Hamilton,” he asked at length, "if I
need a man's help may I count upon you? One mo-
ment. Professor Ledsky has been called away. He
has kindly lent me his laboratory and I have work
I should be doing there now. Mrs. Ledsky is with
me heart and soul in unraveling this mystery, which
has fallen upon her very home. But in case I need
a man's help-one I can trust.”
“Should Mrs. Benton be run down, you mean?"
"Just so.”
"If I can do anything !” the doctor said; he was
not quite certain what he was being drawn into, nor
what motive lay under the apparently frank request:
"If you want me let me know. You can telephone
me.”
“That is good. You could motor up or take a
train, eh?”
“Yes, Westchester County? I know it quite
well”


214
MR. GUELPA
“Thank you.”
Doctor Hamilton had risen.
“May I detain you a moment longer ?"
The doctor paused:
"Miss Kittie Glenn."
The doctor smiled grimly, in his beard; he well
remembered that girl and her visit. And he had ap-
parently misjudged her.
“Miss Glenn has given me a snap-shot photo-
graph of Peter Barling-Benton, eh? And of his
wife, Mrs. Benton. I am at a disadvantage. I have
never seen either of them, though the insurance peo-
ple have. Do you also recognize them?”
“Of course. The man is Benton."
"And the woman? The lady?”
“It is not very clear to me, but I think I rec-
ognize her.” He held the photograph in his hand
for some time, studying it reflectively, before he
added, “It is a good likeness."
“Do you notice anything else in the photo-
graph?”
"The tree, you mean?"
"Not a tree, Doctor, but the shadow of a tree
has fallen upon it. And that tree, I think, stands in
the lawn of the Ledsky home. The picture. And
that means ? Cumber again. During one of the
periods when the professor and his wife were ab-
sent, Cumber apparently had both the Bentons up
there and took this snap-shot. A shadow on the
film. Something he perhaps did not notice. I ad-


'ARIADNE'S THREAD
215
mit it is not much to positively identify the place the
photograph was taken. And yet because it is so
insignificant an indication-so vague-it is even
more important, for you see, it was not meant to be
there. You shall come to that house and look for
yourself—the shadow, eh? It is very interesting.”
They were still studying the shadow when Mr.
Ringgold was announced. He entered with his
usual dignity, but a hint of amusement was on his
prim face. Behind him was the flushed and out-
raged youth who was Paul Dupuis.
"How do you do, Mr. Ringgold, and ah, you,
Mr. Dupuis !"
“This young gentleman was found in suspicious
circumstances prowling about the Ledsky home and
our very active detectives brought him to our of-
fice," Mr. Ringgold explained, "and he insisted
upon seeing you.
"Well ?" Mr. Guelpa was all twinkling urbanity.
Paul was deeply aggrieved; his personal dignity
had been mauled about; his ego had been man-
handled.
“I wish, sir, you would permit me to speak to
you alone,” he said. “I had a perfect explanation
of my presence there, but I couldn't tell those fools!”
"No? The mousetrap. You got in, but you
couldn't get out, eh? Never mind the others. They
are all friends of mine."
"I shall leave you,” said Doctor Hamilton.
“No, no, you may want to hear this. You must


216
MR. GUELPA
know that Mr. Dupuis is an old friend and acquain-
tance—the son, too, of a friend. Come, Paul, why,
did you poke your nose into the mousetrap? Speak
out! What were you after ?”.
Paul summoned a kind of defiant courage.
"Your daughter, sir." And his voice broke.
"Julie!" And Mr. Guelpa's amazement was
real. He gasped.
And Paul, repeating that magic word “Julie"
rushed his boyish recital at him. He told of the
snap-shots he and Julie had taken in the garden, how
he had developed and printed them, and taken them
with him to Ledsky's house, to hide them for her in
a cavity of the old tree near the door. She would
look for them. And just as he had managed to get
through the hedge unseen-
“Here they are, Mr. Guelpa,” he exclaimed with
sudden desperation. He took an envelope from his
pocket. "And there's a letter. I am not ashamed
of it. I want you to read it and then you will un-
derstand.”
In spite of a flustering sense of indignation Paul
carried himself in a manly way, as he confronted
the formidable "step.”
Mr. Guelpa examined him with quizzical but not
unkindly eyes.
“Tiens! tiens! Julie! Here, my lad, take back
your letter. It is quite too romantic a thing for me
to handle. That is a matter for Julie—and I may
add, for Mrs. Guelpa."


ARIADNE'S THREAD
217
The photographs he looked at smilingly, seeing
a wide-eyed simpering Julie and an erect beaming
Paul. Then suddenly he snapped out: "Ah, come
here, Doctor Hamilton, look at this!"
“The shadow!" the doctor exclaimed, after
glancing at the picture.
"More than the shadow! There is part of the
tree itself—that lean limb pointing downward.”
"It is unmistakable."
"Almost precisely where that photograph of the
Bentons was taken! Near the Ledsky house. It
confirms my proof. It is all I want. The Bentons
posed there, almost where those children played
their little comedy of love-making."
“Comedy!” Paul cried. “Comedy!”
“There, there," murmured Mr. Guelpa sooth-
ingly, "I did not want to hurt your feelings. Com-
edy was the wrong word. As a matter of fact you
have done me an immense service. And my step-
fatherly indulgence is limitless, but what Mrs. Guel-
pa will say to her daughter-tiens!"


PETER BARLING
219
"We all have found freedom here," Mrs. Led-
sky proclaimed, "boys and girls, too—it's the right
way. Freedom means knowledge, and knowledge
of life means safety and happiness.”
"I agree with that, Madame." And Paul's ap-
proval was dignified; the philosopher approved.
“And your husband, Mrs. Ledsky?" Mr. Guelpa
inquired. “When may we expect him? Our little
visit is drawing to an end—much as I regret it
and I should very much like to see the professor be-.
fore we leave, which must be no later than to-
morrow.”
“I am so sorry. Must you really go so soon?
Professor Ledsky may not return to-morrow-he is
in Philadelphia--but the next day he is sure to be
here," his hostess replied; "and in any case, you
must know, I shall keep Julie. Her mother has con-
sented, because really an hotel is a stupid place for
a young girl. She needs companionship of her own
99
age-
“Like yourself," Mr. Guelpa interposed gal-
lantly.
“Eleanor is twenty-five," put in Julie, “she told
me so.”
“Eleanor !” Mr. Guelpa exclaimed, “eh?”
"I asked her to call me Eleanor, I love to hear
her say it."
"You are spoiling her?"
“And Eleanor calls me Julie, of course. And
we are going on a long motor-ride and dine at a
club-house, oh, many of us-Paul, too!”
9)


220
MR. GUELPA
“Paul!" echoed Mr. Guelpa, raising his eye-
brows.
“Don't prattle, Julie," her mother advised the
bubbling girl.
It was not until later that Paul got a whispered
word with her. It went like this:
“They've got our photographs-oh, Paul!”
“But I can print some more. They haven't got
the films. And to-morrow I'll bring them straight
up to the front door--and to you. Oh, Julie!"
“Paul!”
“Dear Julie!"
“Paul!”
“Dear Julie!”
“No, no, you mustn't! If some one should
come. Well, there!" ”
“That was only a peck."
“Paul."
"Please"
When Julie got her breath she made use of it to
say: “And Mary Ann?”
“Don't think of her. She is a child-a child-
vamp, a love-gamester, and infant vivisectionist-
she is only playing with her immature emotions. I
understand the American girl, thoroughly, Julie.
And I have banished Mary Ann from existence.
We are alone.”
But Paul was mistaken. Mrs. Ledsky joined
them, adorably sympathetic, and right then and
there entered into a conspiracy with them. And


222
MR. GUELPA
by that woman's disappearance,” he said; "he has
grave apprehensions as to her safety."
“You mean?"
“He fears she may have been made way with."
“Killed !"
“To get rid of her--to prevent her betraying
her associates. I do not know. But this man,
Cumber
"I hate him."
"Your judgment of him is not at fault,” Mr.
Guelpa replied; then he told her of the discovery he
had made in the Narrow House, the imprint, the coat
he had taken from Cumber's room. Mrs. Ledsky
was plainly terrified.
"And that wretch is here in my home-my
husband's trusted servant!" she exclaimed. “Oh, I
am afraid!”
“You have nothing to fear, Mrs. Ledsky. I am
not, strictly speaking, of a warlike nature, but I
think my protection will suffice until your husband
returns. I shall most certainly remain if it will
ease your mind."
"It will—it will—besides Professor Ledsky
himself desired it."
"And remember there is a man or two at hand.
Your house is guarded.”
“I am afraid of Cumber,” she repeated. "In
spite of all you say I am afraid of him.”
“No, no, he is the one who is afraid. Or soon
will be."


PETER BARLING
223
"Then he was really conspiring with that awful
woman"
"Beyond doubt."
"You think he helped her kill her husband? To
share the insurance money.
That awful man!
What could attract her to him?"
"You know," Mr. Guelpa remarked reflectively,
"even a man like that can fall in love. He may have
wanted Mrs. Benton. He saw a way to set her free
and gain a fortune-his kind of love would always
smell of crime. I wonder! Is it too late to have
Cumber summoned? You could send for him?"
"Of course I can send, but he may not come.
He knows the professor is away.” She rang for
Alva and gave the message.
“He will come,” Mr. Guelpa said calmly, “he
will be afraid not to come."
'And Cumber came. He slouched in the door-
way with an air of sullen indifference.
"You wanted me?” he addressed Mrs. Ledsky.
“Yes. Please sit down. Mr. Guelpa desires to
ask you a few questions.
“One or two—just a few," Mr. Guelpa re-
marked in his affable way, "about Mrs. Benton.”
Cumber showed no mark of interest.
“How long did you know her, prior to her dis-
appearance, eh?"
Cumber started, then slumped back in his chair.
"I've already said I didn't know her. Isn't my
word sufficient?"


224
MR. GUELPA
"No," Mr. Guelpa returned a trifle grimly, “it is
not sufficient-time and again you were in her bed-
room-leaning on her mantelpiece—wearing that
coat."
Mr. Guelpa took up the coat, which had lain,
folded under a rug, at the foot of a sofa.
“That's your coat?"
“Yes. What is it doing here?”
"I purloined it, Mr. Cumber, from your closet.
In the interest of science. And justice, eh? It is
the one you wore in those conferences with the Ben-
ton woman, whose husband, eh? is dead"
Cumber got heavily to his feet, pushing back
the chair with a lurch of his thighs.
“This is some sort of frame-up," he said
thickly, "but I don't fall for it. I've nothing to say
to you."
“That is a pity," observed Mr. Guelpa, "because
I want to give you a chance to explain. You will
really oblige me if you sit down again, unless you
prefer to stand.”
Cumber went sulkily to his chair. He was fur-
tively defiant, but his face had gone white and fear
lurked in his eyes. Mr. Guelpa walked up to him
and suddenly held out the snap-shot of Mr. and
Mrs. Benton.
“Know that? See it? When did you take it
this photograph of the Bentons ? Come!”
One glance was sufficient; Cumber's eyes fell,
and he crouched back in his chair,


PETER BARLING
225
"I see you recognize it," Mr. Guelpa said
quickly.
“I never saw it before."
"No? And you didn't take it? And you do not
know where it was taken?”
“I've told you I never saw it until you stuck it
in my face.”
“Cumber, you took it--and within a few feet
of the door of this house."
"Mr. Guelpa!" Mrs. Ledsky cried out, “then
that woman has been here-in my house !"
"She was here and with Benton-and Cumber
photographed them in the garden. Here is the
shadow of the crooked tree. Just so it appears in
the photograph Paul took of my daughter, from al-
most the same spot. Light plays queer tricks with
a film. It marked for positive identification the
photograph Cumber took of the Bentons—with a
shadow. Look here, Cumber, you had better tell us
all about it, while you have the chance. No one who
was in that swindle is going to escape. Mrs. Benton
has already been identified as a Mrs. Forsythe who
played the same game out in Los Angeles five years
ago. And Benton-her husband—the man in this
picture you took in the garden-was with her at
that time. You recognize him?"
“No, I tell you,” Cumber, snarling, heaved for-
ward savagely, “but if you ask her perhaps—" He
shot a menacing finger straight at Mrs. Ledsky
“She'll tell you who he is, damn you!”


226
MR. GUELPA
And Cumber flung himself out of the room
slamming the door after him.
“The insolence !” Mrs. Ledsky exclaimed, "how,
dare he! I am so sorry,"
“His insolence? Does that matter? I'm used to
the menace of criminals and that man is a criminal
a born criminal. He has convicted himself.”
“But what did he mean about the picture?" she
asked. "I scarcely understood him. Please let me
see it."
Without a word he placed in her hand the pho-
tograph. She looked at it wonderingly; then stifled
a scream.
“My God! Mr. Guelpa, where did this come
from?"
He did not tell her; it was no moment for talk
of Miss Kittie Glenn, who had lent him the Benton
snap-shot.
Instead he asked: "Do you recognize the
woman?”
“No, no! But the man? I recognize the man.”
"Mr. Benton ?"
"No, no, that is Peter Barling," and her voice
quivered.
“You know him?"
"He is my brother."
In his long career Mr. Guelpa had faced many
startling revelations, but this one held him speech-
less. Mechanically he took the photograph from
her hand. At last he found words.


PETER BARLING
227
“I am so sorry I startled you," he said gently.
“I could not dream that this man was your
brother."
"And you say he is married to that-woman?"
“More than that I am afraid, Mrs. Ledsky. You
are forgetting. Peter Barling, known as Richard
Benton, was not only implicated in the swindle in
Los Angeles, but in that of the Great Orient here."
"Peter? My brother ?” She did not seem to
grip the fact
“Tell me about your brother, Mrs. Ledsky, if
you can confide in me."
It was not a pleasant story for a woman to tell
of her only brother--the black-sheep who had driven
their parents to poverty, and a welcome death. He
was considerably older than she; he would be about
forty now. She had not seen him for a long time-
years. He had had every opportunity that education
and environment could give a young man. He had
been expelled from college for a gambling scandal.
He was always a gambler. He had robbed his fa-
ther and mother. But when the parents died there
had been some money left for both of them. He
had run through his own and then through most of
hers. She had paid and paid. And then after she
was married, he had hunted her out again. Her
husband had tried to reform him, but it was no use.
He would accept no kind of work. He would go
his own way, which was a way of gaming, debauch,
theft perhaps--Professor Ledsky had got him out


228
MR. GUELPA
of a case of blackmail, but after that would have
nothing more to do with him. It was then she
learned that her brother had gone out West—to Los
Angeles. Once he had telegraphed he was dying
and she had gone out there to see him during Pro-
fessor Ledsky's absence in Europe. But it had
turned out to be a ruse to get more money from her,
and she returned, resolved never to have anything
more to do with him. From that time she had heard
nothing—nothing—until this
"It will be a terrible blow to my husband, when
he knows. And Peter. What shall I do?"
She was trembling as she made this appeal to
him, and Mr. Guelpa, deeply touched, tried to com-
fort her.
“Why, he must have been here all this time,”
she went on, "and Cumber? Of course he could
easily have got to know Cumber. He has been with
us for years. Oh, Mr. Guelpa, then they did hide
that woman heremin this house. Surely you can
make Cumber confess where they did hide her."
“He will tell everything. Have no fear. His
violence was meant to cover his cowardice, and a
frightened man always tells."
“His terrible voice! He would do anything!"
“Even murder, yes,” Mr. Guelpa agreed, “if his
fear is deadly enough. You see a coward is al-
ways-"
Mr. Guelpa stopped abruptly. Mrs. Ledsky was
staring at him, her eyes widened with horror.


SLEEP AND DEATH
231
'detectives had ceased-at least the night-watch had
ceased. The mousetrap had failed. It had caught
neither the mysterious Mrs. Benton nor an accom-
plice of hers slipping in and out; it had caught only
Mr. Guelpa and the wandering romanticist, Paul
Dupuis. But in the morning Grogan or Tim Lear
would prowl about as usual, for a paid job is a paid
job; but this night of obliterating snow had driven
them to rooms and blankets in the village near by.
They, too, slept.
And Cumber?
It was in his destiny, also, to sleep deeply that
night. Soundly.
Even the cold dawn that came and stared into
his window did not wake him.
It was seven o'clock in the morning when Aman-
da, the day-cook, came up from the village. That
was her hour. During the two years she had been
the Ledskys' cook she had never been early or late.
Born in the village she had lived her forty barren
years there. Gaunt, tall, thin, erect, long-faced, she
had the forbidding exterior of the predestined spin-
ster, but the soul within her was tremulous, gentle,
love-hungry.
She opened the door to the kitchen with her key.
It was cold there, bitter cold; she lighted the cook-
ing-range and went up-stairs to the garret room,
where she kept a few of her possessions. She heard
the housekeeper stirring; that was well; she tapped
good morning as she passed; but Cumber should be


232
MR. GUELPA
.
stirring, too; she rapped on his door-and the door
swung away from her hand. The room was filled
with the bleak dim daylight.
She peered in
And then wild terror seized her and she
screamed aloud—the scream of a terrified horse,
shrill and shaken.
Mr. Guelpa's sleep fell from him. In a flash he
was up the stairs. And Jules-Marie Guelpa dis-
closed himself as he was, the few long strands of
hair he used to cover his baldness with, hung down
over his neck, his pajamas revealed his old bones;
but the eyes were alert and the eye-glasses were
astride the lean nose. He caught Amanda by the
arm.
"What are you screaming for, like that?”
She was leaning against the door, chalk-faced;
quivering.
“In there,” she gasped, "look at it!"
Mr. Guelpa thrust her aside.
"Be quiet-stop that.”
He stepped lightly into the room.
Cumber was in bed: a bloodstained bed. And
Cumber was dead; for a bullet had torn through
his brain. Long dead, for when Mr. Guelpa touched
his hand it was very cold-the hand near which lay,
as though it had fallen from the inert fingers, a re-
volver. Near his right hand, on the bed. His left
arm hung over the edge, almost straight down,
pointing to a pool of drying blood.


SLEEP AND DEATH
233
Mr. Guelpa swung round quickly.
Women were crowding at the doorway: Mrs.
Ledsky, Julie, their night-clothes partly covered,
Alva
“Go away,” Mr. Guelpa commanded, approach-
ing them hastily, “there is nothing you can do.
And this is no sight for you. This man is dead.”
Julie was quiet, round-eyed; Alva waited pa-
tiently, her peasant mind not yet awake to reali-
zation; Mrs. Ledsky stared, with fixed eyes, into the
room-straight at the bed—but she did not speak.
She seemed cold and quiet as the man who lay dead.
Mr. Guelpa urged them away from the door and
locked it from without.
"Can you telephone for the police, Alva ?”
“Yes, sir, I can."
“Then do it at once. Mrs. Ledsky, I beg you
to go to your room. Julie, you too. Help Mrs.
Ledsky to her room."
He did not wait for them to go. The key of
Cumber's room in his hand, he dashed back to his
apartment. There he put on an overcoat over his
pajamas and opened the window.
He took from a night-table his old Paris police-
whistle. It was the signal he had arranged with
the company's men who were supposed to be watch-
ing the stone house.
"That can wait," he muttered, and mounted
quickly the flight of stairs to where the dead man
lay, He went to the bed.


234
MR. GUELPA
Suicide, eh? Mr. Guelpa had not expected that
turn of events. He had expected, after the psychic
offensive he had driven at Cumber the night be-
fore, he had, indeed, expected him to weaken the
mind still sick with fear and guilt seeking relief in
avowal. But no; Cumber was a moral sloven-he
couldn't even tidy up his crime by confessing it.
No. It was suicide. Who was there to kill him,
save the man himself? Suicide, Mr. Guelpa
reasoned.
Yes, his own revolver got him at last.
It was always that way. His revolver. His
own familiar weapon. It lay on his table, or in a
drawer, or smuggled in his pocket. He saw it every
day. Then came the hour of terror and despair,
when suddenly it ceased to be dead matter, mere
steel and lead, and cried aloud to him. It called to
him: "See! I am here! Come!” And the poor
devil, trapped and fear-shaken, heard the call. He
took it up. Whiff! And that is suicide.
Mr. Guelpa glanced round. The room was in
order. On the table by the bed was a writing-pad.
Mr. Guelpa picked it up.
“Of course,” he told himself grimly, "of course!
The most abject soul when it goes out, wants to
leave behind a justification-one last pompous lie.
A tribute to vanity.”
He looked at the paper : two loose leaves. The
first was written by a fairly firm hand in pencil.
The limp soul of the man who was about to kill him.


SLEEP AND DEATH
235
Self had not yet made the hand waver; vanity up-
held it. He read:
“Having been betrayed and lost everything this eve-
ning, on account of both, I decided what to do.
Don't think I am insane-I know full well what
would happen and have good reason to know, hav-
ing suffered the tortures of Hell.
“Yours truly,
"Ernest Cumber."
The writing did not end with this signature; it went
on unbrokenly:
“I kill myself to escape, not from what I have done,
but to escape from the demon.
“Yours respectfully,
"Ernest Cumber."
That was the first page. Mr. Guelpa laid it
back on the table.
“Is any man quite sane," he asked himself,
"when he determines to kill himself ?”
He took up the second leaf. Here the hand-
writing was spasmodic-it wabbled all over the
page and the pencil had dug holes in the soft paper.
"I am not afraid to hell with them—having
been thoroughly betrayed—not afraid—the fiend
can do nothing to me now"-
At the foot of the page, scrawled by a hand that
only desperate resolution forced to carry on were


236
MR. GUELPA
lines and dashes that seemed meaningless, the mere
written gesticulations of terror.
The second leaf Mr. Guelpa slipped into his
pocket.
He went out, locked the door and hurried to his
bedchamber
Before dressing, he opened his window, leaned
out and blew twice-two shrill blasts on his silver
whistle. He dressed quickly, though he shaved and
waxed up his mustache and combed carefully over
his bony head the lank scalp-locks that failed to
hide his baldness. Then once more he sent out the
signal. A moment later he saw Grogan stalking
across the snow-covered lawn and approaching the
house. Grogan, back on duty, had heard the signal,
and Mr. Guelpa was in time to reach the kitchen to
meet him at the door.
It was the destiny of Amanda to cook for other
people, and the routine of getting breakfast had
brought back a little of her acid calm of demeanor,
and she kept her mind on what she was doing. Alva
was aiding her.
“You telephoned to the police?" Mr. Guelpa
asked.
“Yes, sir, I did,” replied Alva heavily, “he'll be
coming up. I told him Cumber shot himself.”
“Thank you. Come in, Grogan.”
“My God! that bird done himself in?” exclaimed
Grogan.
“Come and see for yourself. You might have a
look round before the police arrive."


SLEEP AND DEATH
237
Cumber had not moved: he was done with that
sort of thing, until the death-fauna went more vio-
lently about their destructive activities.
“That's the gun. A neat job,” said Grogan,
"and that's the farewell-naughty-world-I'm-going-
home, I guess," he added, picking up the page of
paper which Mr. Guelpa had replaced on the night-
table. “Yep, and batty as they make them, he was,
'Yours respectfully.' What do you think of that?"
“It will be clear enough for the police, eh?
Suicide."
"Sure. Let them take him. It's a coroner's
case all right. Say, I'll push 'em along and have
'em get the body out of here.”
“The sooner the better."
"Did he figure in your case, sir?"
Grogan had learned a great deal from Tim Lear
since their experience in arresting Mr. Guelpa ; he
knew the big little man was with them in the Ben-
ton mystery.
"At least he has gone out of it now," Mr. Guel-
pa returned, glancing at the white flabby face on
the bed, a bullet-hole drilled through the head.
“Will you see to everything? No. I had better ex-
plain this suicide and say I called you in. You can
give any explanation of your presence you please.
But I want the body out of the house. The women
can't stand it."
“Leave it to me, sir.”
'And to Grogan it was left-a long leaving. The


238
MR. GUELPA
local policeman arrived, with another man; then the
coroner and his physician; they had much to say,
though there was little need of many words. There
lay the dead man, the revolver at his side, his signed
statement of his determination to commit suicide on
the table. There was Amanda to question, she who
discovered the body. And Mr. Guelpa who had
heard her cry out. And Alva and the ladies who
had been brought up-stairs to the door of the sin-
ister room by her scream.
“Had any one heard a revolver shot in the
night?”
No one.
“He shot himself," said the coroner's physician,
"about three o'clock."
He read the death note.
"Did the late Cumber drink heavily? Drugs?”
No one had suspected such things of him.
“Signs of dementia ?”
“He was always sullen, kept to himself;" Alva
admitted he was queer.
"Well, his brain tipped over," said the coroner's
official; "that letter was written by a crazy man.
Being young he was confident and desirous of
impressing the famous criminologist.
Mr. Guelpa, when Mrs. Ledsky had finished
answering questions, led her not to her own room
but to that of Julie.
“You will be better here," he said gently.
“You did what I asked ?" she inquired.


SLEEP AND DEATH
239
"Yes, I was fortunate to get Professor Ledsky
on the telephone in the Philadelphia hotel you
mentioned."
"It's a God's mercy you are here, Mr. Guelpa.
What should I have done if I had been alone
with Alva and that man!"
“Do not think of that now. Your husband will
come by the first train,” he replied.
"I'm thinking of him. Cumber was more than
his servant-he was his protégé and friend. In
spite of all I said, he could not believe anything bad
against him. He would not believe it—that Cumber
had been hiding Mrs. Benton in this house. But
now when they know so much about Cumber-his
visits to the Benton house, the photograph—he will
have to believe it." She broke off.
“Mr. Guelpa,” she went on at last, “I must tell
him, too, all about Peter-my brother"
“Let me explain everything to him, my dear
lady. It will all be a great shock to him. But I
shall try and make it easy for him. His nerves are
not steady, I know, but underneath he is strong and
ready for anything that can happen. And I shall
prepare him. His confidence in Cumber has been
terribly abused, both by Cumber and his associates.
The professor was totally unsuspicious. As for your
poor brother—he will understand and forgive."
The unhappy woman seemed to find strength in
Mr. Guelpa's sympathy; and now both Julie and
her mother were with her.


240
MR. GUELPA
He left the women together.
He had already telephoned Steeger. That mes-
sage had gone through at the earliest possible mo-
ment. Now he called up again, and Steeger himself
replied that Ringgold was on his way. He would
not be very long.
Then Mr. Guelpa went back to the death-cham-
ber. The officials had gone.
He took from his pocket the second page of
Cumber's last message to the living. It was un-
signed. It seemed quite as mad as the page he had
left for the police and coroner. It was of no im-
portance. Why had he kept it? Mere raving, but
stay! Those scratches and dashes at the foot of the
page. In his last moment—his mind already afire
with death-terror-what had the coward written
there? A desperate appeal? Or a cry for ven-
geance, rising above his sickening fear of demons
and death. Mr. Guelpa set himself to figure out
the marks. Plainly enough they were words—frag-
ments—at last he put down in his note-book this:
"Look-Look
Find it-Gener-Hist-
Secon Vol-212
212-
Fiend"
Or was the last word find ?
Mr. Guelpa's eyes went straight to the row of
books. Once before something had attracted him
called to him from those shelves. An intuitional


242
MR. GUELPA
the passion of approaching death, declared it was
there?
Because he had put it there.
What? His denunciation? His vengeance?
'And had some one unknown to him stolen his
vengeance away? Yes, that must be it. But what
had it confided to the blank page, besides a few faint
indications of darkness. The eternal confidence
given by matter to the matter it touches.
It was there Cumber had hidden his "ven-
geance"—that proof of some dark crime, the
knowledge of which was perhaps his protection, as
well as his vengeance. That is why he had kept it
(as he thought) ready to hand. Not on his person,
whence it might be stolen from him; but concealed
in one of dozens of books, beyond discovery, yet al-
ways at hand.
Who had stolen it?
Some one whom it would incriminate.
Mrs. Benton when she had taken refuge in the
house? Had she known of its hiding-place? Was
that why she came? Had she found it?
What did it matter? Its ghost lay there on the
white page; an unseen ghost, that had been driven
in (perhaps by the slow pressure of the volume to
right and left of it) to the white depths of the blank
page.
It could be summoned and it would come
forth again—to denounce and avenge.
Mr. Guelpa had performed greater miracles in
his business of making matter cry aloud its secret.


244
MR. GUELPA
Mr. Guelpa saw.
He went up to his own suite. Mrs. Ledsky was
there in Julie's room, and his wife. Gently he ex-
plained to Mrs. Ledsky that he knew her guests
were a heavy burden on her in this hour of dark-
ness. Mrs. Guelpa and Julie must go to town at
once. He had already telephoned Paul Dupuis and
he would take them in.
“Get your things together, dear," he said to his
wife.
Mrs. Ledsky protested feebly. No, she could
not be left alone.
“But I shall be here," Mr. Guelpa promised,
"and your husband will arrive in a few hours. You
will not be alone. And you must rest—this tragedy
has broken you. You must take something to steady
yourself. When the professor arrives he will know
what to do for you."
Mr. Guelpa was soothing, comforting, inexor-
able. Mrs. Ledsky went to her room and Julie made
her lie down.
Soon Paul Dupuis came in a limousine. The
luggage was piled on it, Mrs. Guelpa and Julie en-
tered, and Paul, sitting between them, rose to
heights of diplomacy, as the car went cityward, for
though he snuggled close to Julie it was to Mrs.
Guelpa that he talked-he showed himself to her, he
wooed her, as one woos no other woman save the
mother of the girl he loves.
Mr. Guelpa was in the living-room waiting. In


SLEEP AND DEATH
247
The men went up the enclosed staircase to the
upper floor and entered the dead man's room. The
eyes had not been closed. The head lay on the pil-
low. When Cross saw it he went close to the bed
and then backed away:
"My God!” he exclaimed, “that ain't Cumber.
That's Forsythe! He's the man they cremated out
in Los Angeles.
"That man has been dead for five years!


CHAPTER XVII
THROWN TO THE WOLVES
PROJE
ROFESSOR LEDSKY bore the shock of his
assistant's suicide with more fortitude than
Mr. Guelpa had expected. Indeed, it almost
seemed he took it with a sense of relief. In that
painful journey homeward he had had time for
reflection, Mr. Guepla decided, and could no longer
shut his eyes to Cumber's connection with the Ben-
ton case—why, the fellow's very suicide was a con-
fession of guilt; and the professor must feel that
this death had lifted the shadow that lay upon his
home.
These thoughts were in Mr. Guelpa's mind as
he worked in the famous laboratory trying to evoke
the ghost of the page 212—this piece of blank paper.
With his usual reticence with regard to uncom-
pleted tasks he had not yet spoken of it to his host,
and the professor himself had been occupied with
the village formalities attendant upon the coroner's
investigation and the funeral of the man who had
been friend, servant and disciple.
Undisturbed Mr. Guelpa was at his task in the
laboratory
248


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
249
Before commencing he had drunk a libation
in distilled water, which was all he had thereto
the manes of Vogel, long dead. It was genera-
tions ago that the obscure photographer of Berlin
had given Mr. Guelpa his "tip." One day in that
long ago a pretty woman had come to be photo-
graphed. Clear of skin, bright of eye, she showed
to the camera a face of beauty and went her way.
When Vogel developed the plate there looked up at
him a face maculated with spots on the forehead
and cheeks. A defective plate? He wrote and
asked her to come for another sitting a few days
later. It was many weeks before she came and
then he saw that the face, formerly so beautiful
with its fresh untainted skin, was now ravaged and
pitted by smallpox.
The camera had seen and recorded an eruption
as yet invisible to the naked eye.
Then what could not the camera see?
Mr. Guelpa's investigations had led him far be-
yond that accidental discovery of the little photog-
rapher. He applied it to his criminal investiga-
tions. It was he who brought to light the forgery
of the Dwight will in London, where the true date
had been carefully eliminated and a date of a more
recent year written in. The other experts had
failed. They had trusted to the text-book theory,
that a scratched-out word may be brought up again
under the influence of tannin or the yellow sulphur
of ammonium. These are no magic drugs; they,


252
MR. GUELPA
and slow. So far his work was to any other than
himself quite meaningless. He covered it with a
cloth and went into the house, for he had heard
Professor Ledsky return from the village.
They sat together in the living-room. The
professor had ceased to defend Cumber, though he
still seemed to feel for the fellow. The evidence
had piled up too high; and he admitted that Cumber,
if not the ring-leader of the two crimes, East and
West, was at least a deep accomplice.
"And what I thought of him! You do not
know how I trusted him, Mr. Guelpa, and to bring
his vile crimes into my very house!"
“Yes, and that unfortunate Peter Barling."
“There, too! Of course I have long known he
was a waster and a rogue. For my wife's sake I
did what I could. I paid and paid to keep him
out of desperate situations. He went through ev-
ery penny of my poor wife's fortune, except a
little I was able to rescue. I invested it for her in
this property.
Of course it has greatly increased
in value and is clear of all incumbrance. That
much I saved for her, or he would have had it.
A brother, you see! She couldn't break her love
for him. Women are difficult to understand
sisters. But at last I had to kick him out and
forbid him the house. He went west and I thought
we were free. And now it seems he has been here
for a year-deep in another infamous crime-un-
der the name of Benton. Thank God he is dead."


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
253
Professor Ledsky had spoken quickly, with ve-
hemence, tapping with nervous fingers some rhythm
on the arm of his chair.
"I wonder,” Mr. Guelpa mused.
He seemed to be plunged in retrospection. Or
he might have been wondering what tune the vi-
brant man opposite him was tapping out on the arm
of the chair. He knew something about that. He
had studied it—this subconscious reflex.
He was
convinced that when a man hums a tune, he selects
subconsciously a song—words, an air—that reflects
his state of mind, the hidden emotion. He listened
to the tapping. Suddenly he leaned forward, speak-
ing with hesitation, with quiet sympathy, to this
friend and compeer in science who was in such dis-
tress.
“Yes, Professor, women are loyal,” he began,
"especially such a woman as your wife. Are you
quite sure she did not help him when she could,
even in spite of your wish in the matter, and with-
out your knowledge?”
"I can not believe it. She would not have de-
ceived me. She knew what we had suffered from
the fellow.”
“But she was always his sister, Professor."
“Yes, but I am her husband. She would not !"
Professor Ledsky exclaimed vehemently.
“And yet could you greatly blame her?” Mr.
Guelpa persisted, "if her sense of duty, if not her
affection, her pity, led her to cling to this outcast


254
MR. GUELPA
brother-even in defiance of the husband's wishes ?
Many women are self-sacrificial. And I think Mrs.
Ledsky is a woman like that."
“You think she knew Barling was in New York?
That she"
Professor Ledsky stopped short and fixed his
black burning eyes on the little man.
"Please tell me frankly what you are driving at,
Mr. Guelpa !” he entreated.
"Pardon me if I distress you," Mr. Guelpa re-
plied apologetically, “but the truth is I have reason
to think that Mrs. Ledsky was in frequent com-
munion with her brother and with Mrs. Benton.
Please-permit me to finish! I believe she visited
their house in New York. More than once. Many
times."
Professor Ledsky's nerves were jerking at him.
He leaped from his chair and went pacing the floor,
wheeling swiftly and then coming back again.
“My wife-mine! Deceived me—to help that
swine of a brother! I will not believe it!"
Mr. Guelpa rose also; he was quite calm. He
met the hot black eyes of the unhappy husband. He
knew he must go on.
But for a while there was
silence between them, as though they were playing
deadly rôles in a mute, unspoken drama. Their
eyes challenged each other. Ledsky's eyes blazed
intensely as though he were trying to plumb the
steady little eyes that peered at him through glim-
mering glasses.


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
255
"What is it? Of what do you accuse my wife?"
Professor Ledsky had spoken first.
“Will you, pray, take your chair, Professor ?"
Mr. Guelpa asked gently. "I shall tell you as much
as I can the time has come when I must take you
into my confidence."
They sat down again and the professor tried to
recapture his self-control, his hands gripped at each
other, rolled and twisted.
"I do not accuse your wife of anything,” Mr.
Guelpa said, “except of having visited—unknown
to you, who would have opposed it-visited her
brother, the man known as Benton, who was killed
for the insurance money in that house in New
York."
"Perhaps you wish to intimate that she was
aware of the infamous crime that was being car-
ried out; is it that?"
“No, Professor, not necessarily, but what will
not a self-sacrificing woman do for the brother she
loves ? But I can not proceed in the investigation
of this case without letting you see where it is lead-
ing me. I must tell you. And my opinion-my de-
duction or what you please-is that Mrs. Ledsky,
however innocently, is involved in this series of
crimes.”
"Involved !
“I would advise you to get her to confide in you.
Then perhaps I can be of assistance to her. Her
yisits to her brother, during his last illness, mark


256
MR. GUELPA
you, will soon be known to others than myself. It
is too late for her to try to shield any one. Unless
she confides to you the entire truth she may be
caught in the net that will-I assure you-gather
up all the conspirators whom death has not saved.
Her brother is dead-Cumber is dead"
“She hated Cumber. It is impossible she should
have been involved with him."
"Did she hate him because he, with the Benton
woman, killed her brother? It may be. Or for
many other reasons. I believe Barling was per-
suaded that while he was to play the part of a dying
man, a corpse was to be substituted at the last mo-
ment as it had been in the other swindle. Barling
was involved in that affair and that is the way it
was brought off. But in this case it is my opinion
that Barling was doomed from the start. He was
not meant to escape-as Cumber, the husband in the
Forsythe case, did. No, the conspirators thought
Barling was not to be trusted this time or they
feared his greed for the money-anyway, he died.
You see he did have to die to win. Poor devil,
when he talked to the nurse of cremation it was to
prepare the way for his substitute"
"A thing impossible in New York,” interposed
the professor.
“Yes, so that is one of the reasons why they did
not take the chance. They succeeded in Los An-
geles. But that was five years ago. Things must
have changed, new regulations come into effect,


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
259
He could picture her coming down the stairs,
pausing, on the point of glancing into the room and
giving them a gentle greeting—a smile; thus, all
unprepared, she had listened to the grave accusa-
tion he had launched against her, and heard her
husband's wild cry of despair- “Thrown to the
wolves! Thrown to the wolves !”
Mr. Guelpa leaned forward in his chair and
faced her.
"It was perhaps all for the best, Mrs. Ledsky,"
he said gently. "I am glad you overheard us.”
Steady, but cold-holding herself well in hand,
she replied: "I must know everything now.”
"You are very brave and I will tell you every-
thing, at least everything you have not already
heard. That I need not repeat.'
“No, you said I had defied my husband and vis-
ited Peter--and that woman! Mr. Guelpa, I give
you my word of honor, I have not seen my brother
for years. I did not see him there in New York.
I never entered his house. I never saw this woman,
Mrs. Benton, who says she was his wife. I had no
dealings with Cumber. I did nothing unknown to
my husband. I had no knowledge of this awful
crime in which my brother was involved and in
which he-perished. Do you believe me?"
Her steadiness was that of truth itself. And
while her gaiety was gone her charm was unabated-
it lurked in the beautiful eyes and the young
mouth-the winsomeness of her


260
MR. GUELPA
"How can I say I do not believe you!" Mr.
Guelpa pleaded. “But will your word of honor sat-
isfy any one else?”
"You do not believe me?" she exclaimed, and
the pain and consternation in her voice hurt him.
But he gave no sign of it.
“Mrs. Ledsky," he said gravely, “the spoken
word is nothing in the face of facts. And the facts
demonstrate that you are guilty of every one of the
things you have denied-upon your honor.”
Her self-control matched his own.
“I have told the truth. I was never in that
house. You do not believe me? You do not
think others will believe me.” Her voice grew
bitter. "Can you prove my guilt ?”
“I can prove it, yes,” he declared, “if you are
guilty. If you did not visit that house of crime,
well, that, too, I can prove.'
“Then you must-you must do it-"
“With your assistance, Mrs. Ledsky, I can do
it. Not without."
"But I know nothing about the affair. I have
told you again and again."
“Mrs. Ledsky, you say you did not visit your
brother's house? No. Well, some one left traces
there—decisive records of a woman who came and
went time and again, who tarried there—who
bathed there-dressed there, slept there"
"But it was not I. You are mad.”
“Will you help me prove that I am mad?”


262
MR. GUELPA
pores it will carry on unchanged into old age-and
death. Age does not change them nor the mutila-
tions of hard work; and if you burn the skin away.
it will come back with the same marks, those the
unborn baby had before its little hands clutched at
life. Eh! Eh! and never are those marks the same
on any two human beings."
She did not seem to be listening, she paid no
heed to his deft manipulation of the plates and re-
ceivers—he used the simple Turin method as he had
not, of course, his own instruments at hand.
"Just the fingers, please—so.
Just a poro
scopic map of the tiny channels that reach the
glands hidden in the dermis. You see? How
quickly it is done.”
Mr. Guelpa did not look at her; apparently he
was interested only in his manipulation of the
finger-prints.
"Parfait!” he exclaimed at last.
look at them? Those I took from a book I found
in Mrs. Benton's bedroom. A book of verse. It
was a new book and had only one set of finger-
prints. And it will not take me long to bring the
others—yours to life."
“And if they are alike?"
“Not alike, but the same,” Mr. Guelpa inter-
posed quickly. "It will mean that the woman who
handled that book so often was not Mrs. Benton
Will you look ? Will you compare
them?”
“Will you
it was you.


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
263
Do you
Mrs. Ledsky stood quite near the table, but
she did not glance down at what Mr. Guelpa had
placed there.
“Here is the book, Mrs. Ledsky.
recognize it? Did you leave it in your brother's
house-by chance? Or did you give it to Mrs.
Benton?"
"I have told you I was never in that house!
Never saw that woman! And I have never seen
that book before." She flushed with anger at his
persistence, it would seem, and added: "Those
things—those finger-prints are they the same?”
“I am not quite prepared to say just yet. Wa
are only beginning, Mrs. Ledsky, beginning," he
replied preoccupied, busy over the table, indifferent
to her question, "and may I ask one thing more-
to step on this plate, it will not soil, and then on
this square of paper ?"
“Anything you please."
"It is to help us both-that I may help you.
I am so sorry, but I shall have to ask you to take
off your shoe and stocking. The right one,
please.”
“That!"
In spite of her flushing anger and embarrass-
ment she did as he requested—this little man who
chattered and persisted—and smiled with pathetic
friendliness; but what was under the friendliness?
Suddenly she began to fear him, because she could
not read what lay under his smile. He turned


264
MR. GUELPA
toward her, as she took a limping step or two, one
foot bare.
“Thank you, step on that, just for an instant.”
He had a chair ready for her, and she sank into
it. He went back to the table. She saw his
head bent over his work, the small old hands mov-
ing like little animals, to and fro.
He took a long time to it. He talked, as if to
himself: "Feet as individual as the hands. Their
marks never change. And that, too, is true for
animal as well as for human. I have taken the
foot-prints of big dogs, of wolves, of cats—ah! ah!
the poroscope identifies them--the interlaced
crests-defined never the same in two dogs or two
apes, or two men-wonderful! Nature marks its
own.
Eh?"
He swung round to her, sitting motionless in
her chair.
"Now that is done, Mrs. Ledsky," he exclaimed
brightly, "our task is getting on-getting on-
Do you know that some woman in the Narrow
House, coming hastily from the bathroom set a
naked foot upon the edge of the parquet floor?
It was recent-only a few hours old—when I ar-
rived. The moisture had evaporated and left-
this! Her imprint, which means—her declaration
of identity. We are getting on—I told you~"
“Then you have found the truth? You know
I spoke the truth-and nothing else. Answer me,
Mr. Guelpa !" she cried imperatively.


266
MR. GUELPA
or other it seemed to waken to life, curling round
his finger as though clinging to him in a silent ap-
peal for protection and help. So tightly it curled he
had to detach it with some patience.
“I want to compare it with the combings of hair
I found in the scrap-basket in the bedroom of the
Narrow House. Combings I believe you call them.”
He had indeed found a tangled bunch of hair in
the basket; it lay near his hand, but after a quick
inspection he thrust it out of sight. He had found
that but he had also found another tangle of hair
faded yellow combings—not like these.
"Come, please, see for yourself.”
She came to his side, eagerness struggling be-
neath her calm.
"Not much alike, eh?" the little man exclaimed,
showing her the tuft of sand-colored combings, ly-
ing now side by side with her soft curl on the table.
“It is not mine! Of course it is not mine! And
that was your test! I don't think much of it.”
“Yes. And you see it has failed, eh? There
can be no comparison at all between your hair and
this."
“Thank God! And the others? They will be
'finished soon and you will know?"
“Very soon, to-morrow morning-perhaps be-
fore because I must leave you in the morning."
"I know they will tell the truth like this one!
I was never in that house, Mr. Guelpa. May I go?"
She was all urgency now. "I want to tell my hus-


THROWN TO THE WOLVES
267
band. He must know. For, oh, what did you make
him believe of me?"
"Yes, please tell him. I should have told him of
the tests myself, but since you will go to him-yes,
that is better."
Mr. Guelpa opened the door for her and showed
her out in his polite way, and came back to the ta-
ble. For a long time he stared at the tests, though
he really needed no time for study or reflection.
He already knew!
The poroscope prints of the fingers—those had
been made in the book found in the Benton house;
these were the ones he had just taken from Mrs.
Ledsky's hand.
They were identical!
The same.
And that little naked foot, here in the laboratory
and yonder in the house of crime and betrayal, had
made its imprints.
They were identical.
The same.
And the brown tangle of hair he had hidden
from her sight and the living curl from her head-
his comparison had been rapid but convincing.
Sans erreur.
They were identical.
The same.
Unmistakable; she had combed her soft brown
hair in front of the mirror in that bedroom in the
Benton house and tossed the combings in the basket.


CAPTURED
273
and she was a bit too quiet to be real-this murder-
lady.
They went into the living-room, where the em-
bers of a fire were dying in the grate.
Mrs. Benton glanced curiously round the room,
at the furniture, at the windows and doors. It was
a look of inspection.
“Them windows are not made for a get-a-way,
lady," Grogan interpreted her examination of the
windows in his own way. "Just you sit down and
be good.”
It was then Mrs. Benton made her first inde-
pendent move. She went direct to a couch in a dim
corner; she had found the point of the least light.
"Please let me sit here," she begged, "the light
outside has hurt my eyes."
“Not used to much light of late, eh? Sure!
Sit where you like if you don't mind my sitting
next? Say! Where you bin hidin', anyway?
Where's that black hole of yours?"
As though in weariness of soul and body that
falls upon the fugitive when at last the chase is
over, she sank back in the cushions and closed her
eyes.
"I've seen 'em go to sleep,” said Lear, watching
her. “You remember Cocky Dane. When I
finally got him an' he knew it was all over, but
touching the button on him, he went to sleep like a
baby-before he hit the floor of the cell. Queer
the way it takes 'em.”


274
MR. GUELPA
“Where in hell has she bin hidin'-or did she
just come back? Maybe she didn't know the
Cumber man had beat it. Looking for him, per-
haps. Well, git busy, Tim. Call up the office
and tell 'em we've got the bird. An' we ain't so
bad at that. That's what they sent us here for,
wasn't it-so tell 'em we ain't so bad."
“Pity the professor isn't here. All right, I'll
phone 'em.”
But before Tim had taken four steps a voice
came from the doorway.
"Tiens! tiens! tiens!"
It was Mr. Guelpa who spoke.
He came in, smiling in the way Grogan did not
like, and threw off his coat and laid his little black
hat on a chair. Then, light of foot, he went
swiftly to the couch where the woman lay, passive,
with half-closed eyes, her coat shrugged round her,
as though she were cold as well as weary.
"Well, sir,” remarked Lear, "we got her at
last, all right.”
“Tiens! tiens!"
“Five minutes more an' we'd have missed her.
We've been called off, you know. We came to
the house to report to you—and she was just break-
ing out."
"I congratulate you.
It is Mrs. Benton. That
was a good photograph of her I had, eh? So
she was getting out of the house?" Mr. Guelpa, al-
ways studying the woman, remarked.


276
MR. GUELPA
glance of suspicion at the woman they had captured
after so long a follow-on, “though I'd sure like to
see the bracelets on her after all the trouble she's
given us. I've seen these feeble ones suddenly
wake up-and something doing. You better keep
your eyes open.'
He went reluctantly, Grogan at his heels. A
few moments later Mr. Guelpa heard their car, as
it wheeled round from the gate and made for the
town.
Left alone with Mrs. Benton, Mr. Guelpa stepped
the full length of the room and then back again
to the couch where she lay-unmoving, in a silence
that seemed determined and self-protective; and
that silence he meant to shatter. She must talk-
she must answer-
And Mr. Guelpa knew she would speak. What?
Full confession? The catharsis of a guilt-laden
soul, urgent to rid itself of the burden? Or a
cloud of words behind which the truth would rise
dimly? She must speak openly. He was im-
patient for Professor Ledsky's return, that he might
learn from her lips the whole infamy of this Cum-
ber he had protected so long. He did not quite
know how he should strike at her apathy and
silence.
He was near the window, still reflecting, turn-
ing the problem over in his mind, when he heard
heavy feet crunching the frozen snow.
Ledsky? No. It was too soon. He could


278
MR. GUELPA
“Come, you
"Cold? She is more than that in my opinion,
Doctor Hamilton. Not tired or weak-no. And
she is not sleepy,” Mr. Guelpa went on in a matter-
of-fact way, "she is quite well—although I just
told the detectives she was ill, to get them out of
the way—but you see, Doctor, this woman is
hypnotized.”
"What damned outrage have you been up to!"
And the physician rose to his great height and
towered there.
“Not I,” protested Mr. Guelpa.
are a medical man. You must understand hype
nosis. You must have seen this state many times
even in the days when you walked the hospitals. I,
at all events, have worked at hypnosis for a score
of years—with abnormal patients in the Salpétrière,
with normal subjects and with criminals."
"Mrs. Benton-Mrs. Benton.”
The woman looked up at the kindly face, a
faint recognition in her eyes, but no words came.
"Come here a moment, Doctor Hamilton," and
Mr. Guelpa led him to the window, away from the
dim corner where Mrs. Benton lay, "you see for
yourself.”
“I can see it now, yes.”
"What do you think?"
"I am puzzled. I have never seen her like this
before-no, not like this.”
“Unquestionably at this moment she is in a
state of hypnosis." Mr. Guelpa continued, "I rec-


CAPTURED
279
ognized it at once. But it is a very uncommon case
and she is a very remarkable 'subject,' I should say.
She reminds me of a patient Fontenoy had in Paris.
He had her in this condition for months at a time
and no one the wiser as she went to and fro. She
would accept uncritically the suggested idea and
carry it out-the post-hypnotic suggestion, you un-
derstand. Of course the suggestion had to be re-
newed from time to time. I have the notes of that
case, taken daily, if you would like to see them."
For Doctor Hamilton this soft-voiced chatter
was intolerable; he broke in
broke in upon it.
“Do you mean Mrs. Benton could have been in
this state when I attended her husband when I saw
her day by day sitting near his bed—impossible!”
"Not quite in this same condition, Doctor," ex-
plained Mr. Guelpa. "Something abnormal is hap
pening to her now—even now. For an unexplained
reason the hypnotic influence may be beginning to
falter. Has the ingenuity of the hypnotizer failed ?
Has he died? Cumber is dead, eh? Suppose this
mind that enslaved her mind had gone out? Eh,
the master of her body and of the limp conquered
soul within it? And now the grip loosens—slowly-
and you, Doctor, did you ever really submit Mrs.
Benton to an examination?”
"Strictly speaking, no. The night her husband
died I prescribed for her, but I saw no indications
of anything abnormal-nothing that might not
have been due to emotional shock and fatigue."


280
MR. GUELPA
"Quite so."
“There was nothing perceptibly abnormal you
mean. But of course you are not a specialist in
this. I quite understand. Many physicians back
away from it, though to-day it is in all your text-
books. But, Doctor Hamilton, when you were
called-from time to time to administer to your
patient, I believe his wife was always in a state of
hypnosis."
“Always !”
"Yes. My point is you never saw her in any,
other way. To you, that condition appeared nat-
ural. Why not? No one could suspect it. And
yet at times she puzzled you. I am right? Yes."
“The nurse feared she was taking drugs."
“Hypnotic drugs? Possibly. But I think not.
There was behind her a deadlier power than that,
the man who developed her as a hypnotic subject,
until she was a tool-or weapon-in his hand.”
“Benton? Or you said Cumber? Hell is too
good for them-hell is too good!”
“Ah, but this! When he made her a subject he
did not make her so for himself alone. I once
thought that only he who had induced the hypnosis
could control the subject. Indeed that was the gen-
eral theory. But I have exploded it a dozen times."
“What can we do? For God's sake let us get
on with what we have to do."
"Ah, that is difficult to decide. I wish Ledsky
were here. I can of course, bring her back to her,


282
MR. GUELPA
It was as though the woman he loved were to
be murdered.
He had stood, giving no indication of the
thoughts that were racing through his troubled
mind. A light touch on his shoulder brought him
back to the world of visible things:
“I am going to begin now, Doctor,” Mr. Guelpa
said softly


284
MR. GUELPA
of her eyelids. Then Mr. Guelpa pressed his thumb
firmly against her forehead between the eyes :
“Look at me-open your eyes."
She seemed to hesitate, then she looked at him;
in the dusk of the room her eyes glowed with a
glassy bluish light.
“Who are you?" she asked; her voice was heavy,
colorless.
"You do not know me?"
"No."
“You are under another control, but wait-lo
at me
She half rose as though pulled up by another
memory. “Of course I know you. You were to
come to me. I was told so, but you have no name.
You are the man to whom I must respond.”
"You were told-by him-your control, to an-
swer me?"
“Yes. He said you would make everything
right for me—that you would understand. And so
I have been waiting-waiting--and now you are
here. I am very glad."
Mr. Guelpa spoke across her to Doctor Hamil-
ton:
"This is extraordinary. I do not understand it.
But it is going to make everything much easier.
And much safer. She is yielding to me willingly,
and with confidence."
"But it must be Cumber who is responsible for
this,” Hamilton said. “Ask her, try to find out.”


THE UNPARDONABLE CRIME
287
He blew on her face and clapped his hands to-
gether as he spoke the compelling word. She
startled as though she had been shot. A suppressed
moan broke from her lips :
"How is her pulse, Doctor ?"
Hamilton touched it lightly:
"Fairly good.”
“Mrs. Benton, you hear me?"
“Of course.”
“You know me?"
“Certainly. You are Mr. Guelpa. Why, you
have just been introduced to me. What a question
to ask!” her deep heavy voice was sluggish, and
her manner was unembarrassed. She sat up and
ranged herself in a more conventional attitude
against the cushions.
"You hear me, alone? The other's commands do
not reach you.
You have forgotten them.”
“You alone, Mr. Guelpa.”
“And the other who sent you here to the Narrow
House so often. Who was he, Mrs. Benton?"
Without a moment's hesitation she answered:
"My husband.”
“Benton!” Hamilton exclaimed. “Benton
and it wasn't Cumber?"
His words passed over her unheard. She saw
only the keen face and twinkling eyes of the little
Frenchman and heard his voice alone.
"Your husband is dead.” This from Mr.
Guelpa.


288
MR. GUELPA
“Is he?"
“You attended his funeral.”
"Of course with my dear doctor-Doctor
Hamilton was with me. How could I forget?
And you know,” she added confidentially, "coming
home I saw him, passing in an automobile with an-
other man.
I was afraid-terribly afraid he was
angry. I fainted, I think I did. I know I was
afraid."
“What does she mean?" Hamilton asked. “Of
course I was with her. But whom did she see?"
Mr. Guelpa nodded at him and put the question
to Mrs. Benton:
“Whom did you see in the automobile? Was
it Cumber?"
"Oh, yes, of course I saw Cumber! But I
wasn't afraid of him."
“Are you sure it was your husband who hyp-
notized you?"
"Always my husband."
"But he was dead, Mrs. Benton, he was dead,
when you saw the man in the car."
“Was he? I did not know."
“Then it was not Richard Benton, your husband,
who hypnotized you, but the man in the car ?"
“Yes. He was my husband.”
"Come now, Mrs. Benton, we know Benton was
your husband.
We have seen the marriage-cer-
tificate.”
"Oh, that was because I had to have it," she
)


290
MR. GUELPA
I am weak, though you wouldn't think it after all
these years."
“You see, Doctor, this unhappy woman was
under hypnotic influence all the time you knew her.
It is just as I thought. She is a pitiful victim and
just as innocent of any, wrong-doing as you are.
Or as I am myself.
“Mrs. Benton,” Guelpa pursued his inquiry,
"Cumber came to your house, did he not?”
"Oh, yes, yes, he had to come."
"Why was Benton killed ?"
“Was he killed ?" She, who was living once
more the woman who had been Richard Benton's
wife, put the question with calm indifference. “Did
they really kill him?
I am so sorry.
The truth
is, he did not want to die.”
“Did you administer the poison?”
"I?
No, no, I nursed him. You must know
that-I had to be his wife--not his real wife-
but I was Mrs. Benton. He said so."
"Who gave him his medicine?”
“Nurse did, and—Cumber."
“You see, Mr. Guelpa,” said Hamilton, “Cumber
was the prime mover in the crime. I believe he
was the real husband she spoke of. Only—he had
to remove that thought from her mind while she
was posing as Mrs. Benton.”
“You think Cumber hypnotized her?”
“Yes, I do. He was capable of anything. And
all the evidence goes to show he was constantly-


THE UNPARDONABLE CRIME
291
though in secret—in the Narrow House. And he
even attended Benton's funeral."
“How many mirrors are there in this room?"
Mr. Guelpa asked suddenly. "Count them.” There
were no mirrors in the room.
"Why I can see three. I love them,” she an-
nounced with a toss of laughter. “You know I
look into them hour after hour until I go away into
the sleep.
It renews the influence."
“And you read a great deal ?”
"Why, yes—but I was mostly in the sick-room."
Other questions, always the steady truthful
answers. She said the nurse had not dressed or
combed her hair in the room; the combings in the
waste-basket were hers.
"Did you not have a lady visitor from time to
time?” Mr. Guelpa asked.
"I do not remember."
"I mean Mr. Benton's sister. Did she not
come to see him during his illness?"
"Had he a sister?"
“Yes. And I believe she was often with him
in the Narrow House. Come now, try to remember.
She was fond of reading.
She read that book
yonder”-and Mr. Guelpa pointed to an imaginary
table-"that book of verse. She probably brought
it with her when she came. And she sat before
your dressing-table and combed her hair. She had
short brown curly hair. She was very beautiful.
And very kind. And she was devoted to her


292
MR. GUELPA
brother. The reason you do not wish to answer
my questions about her is because her visits had to
be kept secret. You had been asked not to mention
them to any one outside the house. But you know
she came there. Now tell me why did you leave
the room in such disorder and go away without
taking any of your clothes ?"
“Because I was taken away in such a hurry,"
she replied.
“Who took you?"
"Cumber."
"And your sister-in-law was not with you?"
"No."
“That surprises me, because she took a bath and
stepped out on the parquet floor with her wet foot
leaving its impression there, probably just before
you were taken away from the house in such haste.”
"I did not see her."
"Perhaps not. But she was there."
"I saw Cumber. He took me away."
“Always Cumber," Doctor Hamilton muttered
"hell is not deep enough!"
“Where did Cumber take you?”
"A long journey."
"Listen. You are leaving this room. Hush.
Quick. You must escape."
“Yes, quick!” She was caught up by the new
insistent suggestion; once more she was flung from
the Narrow House; first in a taxi, then a street-car,
the trolley-and she followed blindly a route that


294
MR. GUELPA
99
“Yes, Benton was her brother, though he had
another name. And it would be quite natural for
his sister to hide you here, even if you were a fu-
gitive from justice.”
“No, no, no! You are wrong. I know no such
person.
Cumber brought me. I came with
Cumber."
“Did he once take a photograph of you with
Richard Benton-out in the garden by the crooked
tree?"
“Of course. Cumber thought we might need it,
and,” she added craftily, "for the insurance peo-
ple-man and wife. But we didn't. And I never
was Benton's wife. How could I be when I was
already married ?"
“Did you know Benton's real name was Peter
Barling—and that he was Mrs. Ledsky's brother?"
"No. Did I have to know that? They never
told me." She moaned a little. “I am very tired.
You hurt me!”
"Haven't you about finished?” Hamilton asked
anxiously, touched by her appeal to the inexorable
little man of science. “What have we learned any-
way?”
“A great deal, Doctor—especially that Mrs.
Benton is an innocent woman and that her inno-
cence can be proved by our experiment to-day.
"Well, I thank God for that," returned Hamil-
ton.
“Yes, and so do I,” agreed Mr. Guelpa, “but


THE GHOST LETTER
299
tude, Mr. Guelpa believed, and these, transformed,
had more effectively disguised the woman than hair,
coat and veil.
“Get rid of those things, Doctor,” he said in a
low voice. “Take them away with you. She must
never see them again. There should be nothing to
remind her of Mrs. Benton."
He guided Mrs. Ledsky to the couch and let her
sink down upon it.
Again he spoke softly to Hamilton:
“For her, Mrs. Benton must have never existed
except as this unknown wife of her brother,
Peter Barling. Remember this: she must never
know the past or the part she played-uncon-
scionsly-in the tragedy of the Narrow House."
Mrs. Ledsky sat up, and looked at Mr. Guelpa
with a little smile of perplexity.
"What is all this?" she inquired brightly, “more
tests?”
“Oh, no, indeed, we are through with tests, my
dear lady. They exonorated you fully. But I think
you have had a spell of faintness. Do you feel all
right, now ?”
"I? Such a thing never happened to me before."
"It happened now,” declared Mr. Guelpa. “For-
tunately, my friend, Doctor Hamilton, chanced to
call on me just as you were taken ill. You will per-
mit me? Doctor Hamilton, Mrs. Ledsky.”
“Then I must thank you,” she said, addressing
Hamilton and giving him her hand.


THE GHOST LETTER
301
of a dying man, had risen-had flamed into beauty,
youth, aliveness! The little head with clustering
curls-
The thought that she was the wife of another
man, at first did not come to him, so compellingly he
felt that she had but newly come to life; and for
him. Ancient vibrations, old harmonies, were
speaking-recalling, it may be, remote lives, lived
out together, in the dim past.
Hamilton stood very erect, now, as though
pulled up by tense emotion. He had hardly heard
what Mr. Guelpa was saying to her.
Her voice, clear and fresh now, recalled him:
“Mr. Guelpa has been telling me you were my
brother's physician,” she said, thoughtful, a little
puzzled, "and I can not express my gratitude for all
you did for him. He-was most unfortunate-but
he was my brother. He was all I had," and her
voice broke a little. "His death under such tragic
circumstances was a great shock to me."
"I did what I could," Doctor Hamilton an-
swered gravely.
There was luncheon; then Mr. Guelpa excused
himself; he had work to finish before he returned
to town.
"And does the professor know you are leaving
to-day?” Mrs. Ledsky asked.
"I shall telephone him," he replied.
He went out, leaving Eleanor Ledsky and Doc-
tor Hamilton in the living-room. When he en-


304
MR. GUELPA
culated by science, the etheric body comes to the
surface, emerges, separates with its eternal rec-
ord of things that once were and of all that will
be-and all the while a material body is entranced,
held in thrall, made to ape the gestures of physical
life-wanton gestures of love and laughter or the
tragic gestures of crime.
The Great Crime!
And who had been guilty of it?
It could be no other man than Cumber, Mr.
Guelpa reflected, as that man's confession crept
line by line over the Burinsky plate. He had been
a medical student, a sort of doctor, easily acquiring
the method and practise of hypnotism. In Mrs.
Ledsky he found a natural sensitive. Her scoun-
drel of a brother aided him. The professor, in his
absorbed life, his constant travel, his long absences
from home could very well have been oblivious of
what was taking place. Mrs. Ledsky had, her-
self, spoken of having been lured to California by
Barling on a plea of illness. Her husband had been
abroad at that time. The Forsythe swindle was
the result. Yes, all unknown to herself she had en-
acted the part of the "widow," was paid the insur-
ance money, and then, restored to normal conscious-
ness, allowed to return to her home.
The Great Crime!
Something like this must have happened, but
Mr. Guelpa was not quite sure. He was puzzled.
Surely Professor Ledsky must have known his wife


THE GHOST LETTER
305
spent some time with her brother in the Narrow
House, without suspecting the use to which she was
being put while there. Yes, that was what he
concealed, out of loyalty to her and fear of her be-
ing entangled in the Benton scandal.
Mr. Guelpa
wondered just how much he knew and what he
would say when he was made aware of the hideous
truth.
The ghost of the letter would tell him.
From the first, Mr. Guelpa, alert to impressions
of inanimate things, had been drawn to the book;
Cumber had given him the key to the page; and in-
tuitively he had felt that there the mystery lay hid.
Or a lie?
Men have gone out of life shouting the lie
"I am innocent!” Or “I accuse Jones, he did it,
not I”-as often as they have moaned out the truth
in a last confession. The mind of man, even when
it lies dying, is mysterious as the death that comes
to still it forever.
Mr. Guelpa was working over his final print-
ing—the last one, he hoped.
Still puzzled, his mind kept reverting to the ex-
periment with Mrs. Ledsky which he had conducted.
He kept asking himself a question.
It was a
And try as he would he could find no
answer for it. Granted that Cumber had been the
hypnotizer of the unfortunate woman, aided and
abetted by her brother; who had thrown her back
into the personality of Mrs. Benton this very mort:
vital one.


308
MR. GUELPA
caught at one another, grouped into sentences.
Legible. He sat up and reached for the magnify-
ing-glass. · Then, pencil in hand, he wrote word for
word all he could decipher. Soon he saw each and
every one would speak. His mind did not link them
up. Resolutely he refused to let them give them-
selves a meaning. Word after word. Had he per-
mitted his brain to cognize their significance his
hand would have refused to write them down. An
automaton, unthinking, he completed his task.
When he had finished he leaned back in the
chair and closed his eyes.
He knew, without knowing, what the ghost had
revealed
And the knowledge overwhelmed him. His
very soul was shaken with horror, revolt, pain. In-
deed his predominant feeling at this moment was
acute, actual pain. He suffered as one who receives
a death-blow. He had received a death-blow.
Something within him had been killed.
He rose impatiently, staring at the long room.
He looked at the familiar objects it contained with-
out seeing them. They no longer had any signif-
icance. It was as though that whole laboratory and
all it contained had never been. Never could have
been.
"I must think," he muttered, "I must think."
For the first time in his life the little man's
brain refused to obey his will. He could not think,
He could only feel.


THE GHOST LETTER
309
"I must read it once more," he whispered.
"Dieu, mon Dieu!"
His will held. He took up the fatal message
and read it through again, steadily.
What he read was this:
I, Ernest Cumber, denounce Hugo Ledsky as mur-
derer and thief and demon. If he murders me these
words will remain. All I have done he made me do,
I have always been his victim since I met him. So
has his wife. Do not listen to him. He is a strong
demon and will fool you. Who but a devil would
have experimented on his own wife-a young girl?
Science--hell! I admit he had nothing to do with
the Forsythe swindle. He was in Europe. I got
in Barling's power. It was not murder, I swear.
Ledsky got no money. Barling got it all. Ledsky~
the professor! But the Benton plot was his--all his
from start to finish. He did it all. He sent his
wife there—kept her there under my eyes.
Bar-
ling was blackmailing him and he saw a chance to
kill him and get him out of the way. And then there
was the money! He wouldn't have refused it. For
his damned science. Professor Ledsky! I swear
he did it all. He killed Barling. Small doses. Da-
tura was the poison. The doctor diagnosed it acute
angina. Hell! The game is up. We are all lost
but Ledsky shall pay. I hide this in a book. You
will find it. I shall make sure.
"Ernest Cumber."
It is quite true that never in his long career had
Mr. Guelpa been so hard hit, as when he let this
dull print-scrawled over with Cumber's denuncia-


310
MR. GUELPA
tion-fall to the table, where it lay, curling in on it-
self. At first he could not believe it. And the
reason was that heretofore his battles against crime
had been clean-cut battles science against crime.
There was a very human side to the genial little
man, but heretofore his sympathy had gone to the
victim, not to the evil-doer. With Professor Led-
sky it was different. His admiration had run in a
full tide toward that great scientist, whose devotion
to science-whose conquests, whose unselfish serv-
ices-had raised him to the highest distinction and
had indeed made of him a world-figure. He had
met him; and intellect had caught at intellect and
clung; for this vivid man, who radiated power,
sympathy, Mr. Guelpa had developed a sincere
friendship. It was one of those high friendships
possible only between men whose minds meet in
the same enthusiasm for truth-the intellectual
friendship, which is stronger than the love of man
for woman.
Could this madman's denunciation be true?
Cumber, who blew his wild brains out, might have
been insane.
But the facts!
That statement seemed to light up all the doubts
and perplexities of the case. So much he had
known, step after step had brought him nearer to
his conclusion. He had accounted for the drama of
the Narrow House. For “Mrs. Benton” posing as
the wife of her wastrel brother. For her long state
of hypnosis.


THE GHOST LETTER
311
But his theory?
He had never glanced at that illustrious man,
hidden, as in bewildering light, in his radiant fame.
He had seen Ledsky not as a man but as glory.
The criminal he had seen was Cumber.
Now his theory was broken on the wheel of
facts.
His quick mind leaped to the new hypothesis.
Cumber's statement gave up more than was
written in the dim words. It revealed the identity
of the second man in the car at the funeral-the
mere sight of whom had driven Mrs. Benton into a
faint-like trance. That was Ledsky. It was he.
It explained “Mrs. Benton's” open departure that
morning from the house, which Mr. Guelpa in his
perplexity had attributed to self-hypnosis. Just be-
fore leaving, the professor must have plunged her
into that trance-state wherein she was indeed Mrs.
Benton, effected the tawdry disguise, and sent her
out-at the appointed hour-straight into the arms
of the detectives.
Yes, Cumber's after-death denunciation of the
great man whose tool he had been, threw light into
the obscurity of the case. It might be true. And
yet it could not be true; Mr. Guelpa took no pleas-
ure in admitting even to himself that he had com-
mitted an error in investigation; and here his loy-
alty to his illustrious colleague held him. Cumber's
infamous slander !
"I will not believe it,” he muttered; and yet he
knew he was trying to convince himself-


314
MR. GUELPA
Mr. Guelpa was firm and decisive; he had laid
away his genial social manner, "and you must
know.”
Shortly he related his experiment in bringing to
life Cumber's denunciation.
"You saw that unhappy woman hypnotized into
an unconscious automaton-sent out to help do the
work of crime? Who do you suppose was re-
sponsible ?"
“Cumber.”
"No, a living man. We are going to see him
now. And he was my friend, my colleague, my,
host.”
"Ledsky! Good God!"
Doctor Hamilton brought the car to a sudden
stop. His hands fell from the wheel. He turned
toward the little man, whose face was now a mean-
ingless mask.
"Impossible! His wife!”
"It is the truth. There may be extenuating cir-
cumstances. Palliations. If there are I shall hear
them and the sooner if you will kindly start your
motor, Doctor.”
“What the devil can he say?" Hamilton shouted.
"Why, damn him, I could see him in hell--that lit-
tle martyr--that little woman,” Rage and pity
choked him. He stamped on the starter and the
car leaped ahead.
"Extenuating circumstances," he exclaimed,
"what? Unless he is mad, the damned alienist."


316
MR. GUELPA
The hot, restless arrogant eyes of the illustrious
scientist were quiet enough now, staring into a
blank world.
But even in death the great man was majestic-
mysterious-formidable,


318
MR. GUELPA
"Man will know nature, yes, but the terrible
thing is he will know man. Science will lay him
open."
Strange words; Mr. Guelpa recalled how Led-
sky had declaimed them, hands darting to and fro,
eyes black as anthracite gleaming; this Ledsky, so
alive and urgent; this genius who had captured and
defined the "Psychic Parasites," who had demon-
strated to the scientific world the "Transformations
of Living Beings”-dead now.
Not all dead, for his books would live. Here,
too, in the feverishly written pages Mr. Guelpa held,
was the real man. Possibly. And the hand that
"laid him open” was not that of science; it was his
own. Alone in his private room in the hotel, Mr.
Guelpa took up the pages of Professor Ledsky's
last manuscript. Once, already, he had read them
rapidly. Now he went over them, slowly, page by
page. He was reading not only the words, he was
studying as well the fluctuating handwriting--the
fevered script, the breaks, the sudden starts, as a
new idea drove in. Hours must have gone to the
making of it he thought. There were passages in
French. The handwriting changed, deepened,
sloped this way and that—the meticulous penman-
ship of the scientist running off into boyish
Scrawls. Yet always it was Ledsky who wrote. It
was his personal gesture.
His writing gesture,
whether it was a result of trained will or of a psy-
chic reflex. Writing is a gesture. And the gesture


320
MR. GUELPA
gaunt years, racking years. From triumph to tri-
umph, degree upon degree, fame the beginning of
fortune and the conscious joy of his work, which
was that of hunting man to the inmost cave of
heredity, where he huddled with the obscure an-
cestors hidden in his subconscious mind. Fugitive
man, who could be captured and stripped of his
psychic parasites, transformed, split into deep-
buried personalities.
The pen had raced on. The arrogance of the
great scientist could not lay it aside. This was Led-
sky triumphant.
And then the handwriting shifted to uncertainty.
The pen had moved slowly.
The woman entered.
He was walking in the street and she came upon
him from a garden gate. A child, with her sixteen
years. Not yet a woman. Flushed and startled she
looked up at him. Her soft eyes met the gleam in
his black eyes—and held. In that one imperative
instant he had claimed her.
Love at first sight? A deadlier thing had hap-
pened. He had captured one of those rare "sensi-
tives," who are the martyrs of science. (Kin to the
sliced-up dog and the guinea-pig tossed into a fur-
nace to race on the burning coals—in the interest
of science!) He had found his "sensitive.” His
subject. All of her—from blithe girlish mind to
the feeblest sensory nerve in the unawakened body-
psychic and physical.


DEAD LIPS SPEAK
321
And the great Professor Ledsky, already fa-
mous, found no difficulty in marrying little Elea-
nor Barling, whose family life was broken. She
went to him, a bird inexorably drawn to the ser-
pent, because she had to go.
It may be there was a little love in her, for youth
itself is love; perhaps, too, Ledsky loved her win-
some youthfulness. But his science held the upper
hand. It was upon her that he made those experi-
ments in human transformations-to-day classic.
It was upon this girl-wife that he loosed the psy-
chic parasites—and studied them.
Mr. Guelpa shuddered a little as he read these
cold paragraphs wherein alone the scientist spoke.
He took up another page. And here the words
came vehemently, in a turmoil.
It was the story of Peter Barling, wastrel and
villain-robber, when he could safely plunder a de-
fenseless sister, forger, too, when he forged the
name of one who dared not prosecute him. He was
right in assuming that his brother-in-law, proud of
his hardly conquered place in public esteem, would
not send him to a cell. And Barling knew more-
over of the evil work carried on in the laboratory,
in the house, as Ledsky tossed the poor hypnotized
subject to and fro—from personality to person-
ality—as though he were some dark creator giving
life to women who wept and laughed as he decreed
and then were flung ruthlessly into oblivion. The
dark pride of the master who played with souls.


DEAD LIPS SPEAK
323
Ah, that cry to a sister's heart! In a few hours she
was on her way, for a second telegram from Bar-
ling's "physician" urged haste. Her brother was
dying. When she descended from the train she
stepped into a trap. It was Barling's "physician"
who met her; and he was Ernest Cumber. She was
taken to her brother's room—a white bed-she saw
him there. Then Cumber spoke sharply. Eleanor
Ledsky had departed. She was not to find herself
again until she entered the train that bore her home-
ward, her brother bidding her good-by. During
the period of her oblivion, Beth Forsythe walked
about in her body, doing tragic things; and the
Forsythe insurance swindle was successfully per-
petrated. For Eleanor Ledsky, finally returning to
her home, that interlude was obliterated. She knew
only she had gone to Los Angeles, seen her brother,
first in his bed, and then at the station as he saw
her off. She was dazed and weak from Cumber's
heavy-handed hypnotic treatment. Barling appro-
priated the greater share of the plunder. They
awaited Ledsky's return. He came and--two cyn-
ical rogues, side by side-told him openly what had
been done in his absence, Already he had been ter-
rified when his wife told him of her visit to Los
'Angeles—to her brother's supposed death-bed-her
blank memory—her finding herself on the train.
Now he knew the answer to the riddle. He was in
the grip of desperate men. And so there were years
of hell for the wretched man.


324
MR. GUELPA
He decided to keep Cumber under his hand.
But Barling? In a few years he was a pauper once
more, back again, hammering at Ledsky's door-
clamoring for money, threatening to denounce him
as the chief conspirator in the swindle—his wife
trained for the rôle.
And always the professor paid, seeking money,
everywhere, by fees and lectures and books, toil-
ing-only to pay it over into the red hand of the
blackmailers.
Five years in which he had constantly to defend
his wife against her brother-against the dog, Cum-
ber, though he had brought him to heel—until she
became dear to him as his own safety.
There came next in the manuscript a long tirade
against Barling, this hound of hell.
Then followed that last confession of the man
who fell—whose courage died within him and was
replaced by crime.
Barling appeared again, from his vagrant life
of evil. This time his threat struck deep into the
harried man. He and Cumber had planned another
insurance swindle and they demanded Eleanor Led-
sky to enact again the role of "widow." Ledsky
yielded because he had to yield, but he determined
that both Barling and Cumber should pay the su-
preme penalty for their crimes. He planned their
death. First that of Barling who was to fill the
rôle of Benton and then—when he could bring it
about with safety—then, Cumber. Thus he would


DEAD LIPS SPEAK
327
to page 212, it was long and patient search when
Cumber was out of the house. He finally found
the document and secretly destroyed it. To Cumber
he gave no sign. It was essential he should think
that his weapon was still at hand. And so Cumber
thought to the end. But a greater fear now had
arisen from the web Mr. Guelpa was gradually
drawing round him. And when he saw there was
no escape he suddenly killed himself.
Another page and the last; Mr. Guelpa read it
slowly. It contained the greatest compliment that
had ever been paid him in his life-or was it a
compliment ?
“Mr. Guelpa, the first day I saw you I knew the
end was drawing near. You know the reason for
that. The 'case you unfolded to me was my 'case.'
Of course I had heard of your wonderful achieve-
ments. (God! what might we not have done, work-
ing together!) I did not fear you for your knowl-
edge. It was not the criminologist I feared. It was
you! And the horror of it was, that although your
presence in my house afforded me the keenest intel-
lectual pleasure-although I was drawn to you as I
had been to no other man- although I and you-we
seemed two great kinsmenit was not for any of
these reasons I insisted on your becoming my guest.
It was because I feared you more than any man I
ever met-not for myself, but for the innocent
woman who was my wife. God! how I feared
you—for her.
“Yes, I was mortally afraid--for her. I wanted
you near me so I could follow your investigations


328
MR. GUELPA
close at hand, thwart them, protect her against
them. And all the while my admiration for your
ability, for your personal characteristics grew and
grew. As time goes I had known you but for a
little while. But you are the only man toward whom
my heart has ever really turned. Try to forget
and remember.
“When I saw that all was lost—that you had
proved yourself too strong for me I took your ad-
vice and threw poor Eleanor to the wolves that you
might save her. I am dying even as I write these
last words, that you may protect her and if nec-
essary prove her entire innocence. I know you will
save her—this human being whom I made a toy of
our science. But in spite of all I loved her. I love
her now.
"You alone can see her through this horror, for
your wisdom is as deep as my crime-my crime
against her soul. The unpardonable crime!
“You were Destiny's messenger to me, bringing
the decree that my life must pay for my sin. I am
glad it was you, and no other, who brought it.
Dear confrère-dear friend"
Then an urgent, terrified signature.
“Hugo Ledsky."
A dead man talking. Death explaining life.


330
MR. GUELPA
had appealed to him-as friend and scientist—that
the scandal of his downfall might not besmirch the
white science of truth-seeking to which they had
given their lives.
“Ah, astute! astute!" Mr. Guelpa commented
softly. “He knew that would hit me hard."
And the woman?
Trusting in his confrère, Ledsky had thrown
her to the wolves of the law, that he might save
her. How?
He knew that in American jurisprudence there is
still lingering an ignorance of the scientific laws
that govern hypnotism-a dread of charlatanism,
a fear of this strange force which is yet only def-
initely known in the great hospitals of Europe, and
in the workshops of the trained psychologists.
“But, bon Dieu de bon Dieu! if they bring that
poor woman into court, I will give them a demon-
stration that will make the lawyers duck under
water and send the experts leaping over each other
like dolphins, eh?”
He chuckled in appreciation of himself. What
a triumph! Science versus law_his own victorious
science!
"Tiens! no,” he reflected, “she'd go free, but
she would carry the scars of the wolves' teeth on
her for life!”
There was another way. A way less glorious
for Mr. Guelpa. Even the credit of it was not to
be his.


SEAWARD
331
That all went to John Faynis.
He was a wolf of the law, but a trained wolf-
trained to attack or defend. He put his coldly sav-
age wits to work, and they served him even better
than the influence he had with the Great Orient,
before which he laid the case.
The guilty ones had escaped down the shadowy
death-trail. Only the ghosts of dead detectives
could hunt them down and have them up to be
hanged by the ghostly rope of a phantom hang-
man,
“And,” said John Faynis, his half-closed eyes
opening suddenly, "there is not a lawyer living who
would counsel you to take Mrs. Ledsky into court.
Her defense is impregnable-mark you, I know
Mr. Guelpa and I believe him. There are too many
precedents against you, in the first place. And you
couldn't get an expert who would dare go on the
stand for you, no matter what you paid. They
would know well enough, they'd leave their reputa-
tion behind them.
“Another thing: Both Ledsky and Cumber
have left written testimony to the absolute innocence
of the woman. And anyway, this is not quite the
kind of publicity an insurance company wants, is
it?
"Why teach the swindlers," he added casually,
"a new and deadlier game?"
It was that all right.
The Great Orient saw it; and, since it had saved


SEAWARD
333
asking for details which might have been rather
hard for us to furnish. Having that very valuable
property on the Hudson made our task both easy
and practical.”
“Then you really think that nothing of the past
will ever return to cloud her normal consciousness?"
"Nothing-unless she should be so unfortunate
as to again fall into such hands as—"
“Ledsky's--or Cumber's,” concluded Faynis.
“Look at it as charitably as you please, Mr. Guelpa,
they were a pair of consummate scoundrels.”
“No, no-Ledsky had great provocation and he
was a big man,” Mr. Guelpa maintained. "And
what a life he made for himself. Lies, deceptions,
fabrications! He had to. Take that rogue of a
Cumber, for instance, whom he was obliged to keep
in his own home, under his very eyes, that he might
watch him, in defiance of his wife's wishes, passing
him off as a poor devil devoted to his interests
whom he hadn't the heart to turn adrift; while all
the while the two men were ready to fly at each
other's throats."
“Would it not be better that Mrs. Ledsky should
know there are certain people and certain experi-
ments she should guard against ?” Faynis sug-
gested.
“No, no,” said Mr. Guelpa, "of course she is
what is known as a 'sensitive,' and must be cared
for, it may be for a long time. And I rather think
she will be."


334
MR. GUELPA
Mr. Guelpa's grin was entirely masculine. He
couldn't help it; not even the most decorous man
can, when he foresees a woman going daintily down
the road which ends in ultimate marriage with some
other man than himself. It is atavistic—the cry of
a caveman ancestor; and every man has heard it.
The average man can not even read of a betrothal
of some unknown girl to an unknown man-with-
out a buried howl of rage from the cave-ancestor,
bidding him heave up his club and slay the male
invader. Mr. Guelpa, being politely civilized,
merely grinned. His atavistic impulse had been
transmuted into that quaint feeling that there is
something humorous about marriages in general,
which is as far as the modern man dare go.
Mrs. Ledsky, after the first shock of her hus-
band's death had worn away—that great man, his
brain shattered by overwork, had poisoned himself
in a fit of temporary madness, much to the distress
of his contemporaries—had sold her property up
the Hudson. The money she paid for Peter Bar-
ling's swindle was only a very small part of what
she received.
She took an apartment near Washington Square,
Alva, stolidly faithful, going with her. Mr. Guel-
pa's prediction that she might have some one to
care for her, seemed already in the way of fulfil-
ment, since Doctor Hamilton's home was but a few
streets away. Evidently he considered her a pa-
tient, needing unceasingly constant attention. She


SEAWARD
335
had come up out of the dark waters with a new ra-
diance. The shadow of the somber tumultuous
Ledsky vanished day by day. She had entered the
safety and warmth of a lighted room, where no
ghost walked-only the huge bearded figure of a
doctor, tamed by a bewitching spirit of love.
And that spirit, having done its work there,
went on its way howling over perfectly respectable
males and females. For love is a deuce of a thing!
And -so totally indifferent to the tranquillity of
life, that it goes shimmying about, knocking 'em
over to right and left.
It had a hard go at George Ringgold; and when
it had him crouching in his corner, it seized the
struggling Miss Kittie Glenn, washed the paint off
her face, pulled up her stockings, hauled in her flags,
and made her look like a girl who would "say yes."
And she said it; whereby in this well-ordered
world George Ringgold was hugged by a dear girl,
who was at once a wife and an enigma-as all wives
are, good or bad; withal Mr. Ringgold found him-
self rewarded with a "peg-up” on his ambitious
ladder.
All this should have satisfied even the most
active love-spirit that ever ramped about New York.
But it made its dreadful way to the old hotel near
Washington Square, where after all these months,
the Guelpas still lingered. It had turned its fateful
eyes on Julie and her blonde beauty and her youth
which was something between flower and fruit.


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