THE MASTER MYSTERIES BANCROFT LIBRARY o THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Gift of Joseph K. Bransten ,\rllM .hW . I'd know then just what you were to me alone in the dark." THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROBLEMS SOLVED BY ASTRO, SEER OF SECRETS, AND HIS LOVE AFFAIR WITH VA- LESKA WYNNE, HIS ASSISTANT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY KARL ANDERSON AND GEORGE BREHM INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1912 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY I OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. CONTENTS it . PAGE MISSING JOHN HUDSON ...,..,.. 1 THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE . . ... .23 THE MAcDouGAL STREET AFFAIR . . . . .44 THE FANSHAWE GHOST ...... .65 THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY ..... 83 THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT ...... 103 THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE ..... 128 Miss DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET ...... 148 NUMBER THIRTEEN ........ 165 THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER ...... 186 WHY MRS. BURBANK RAN AWAY . . .. ; > . 203 MRS. SELWYN'S EMERALD . . > : .... . . 225 THE ASSASSINS' CLUB ....;... 247 THE LUCK OF THE MERRINGTONS . . ... . . 271 THE COUNT'S COMEDY ..... . 291 PRISCILLA'S PRESENTS . . . ,. ; . . .311 THE HEIR TO SOOTHOID ..... ... 326 THE Two Miss MANNINGS ...... 344 VAN ASTEN'S VISITOR ...... . 365 THE MIDDLEBURY MURDER . . . . .384 VENGEANCE OF THE Pi RHO Nu .:.... 407 THE LADY IN TAUPE . . . . . .428 MRS. STELLERY'S LETTERS . , : > x . . 443 BLACK LIGHT . . . >: -. . . . 465 '/ INTRODUCTION Astro put The Great Cryptogram back upon his book-shelf among the other attempts to solve the im- mortal Shakespeare-Bacon controversy. "Valeska," he said, turning to his pretty assistant, "it's queer that there appears to be no other book con- taining a secret message except the Shakespeare folios, isn't it ! It seems to me that I have heard it said that Chatterton had a cipher in one of his books, though ; that's the only other one I know of. Strange more au- thors haven't done it !" "Why?" Valeska asked, looking up from her cata- logue. "Why should a writer put anything in that can't go plainly in the body of the book, or, at least, in an introduction?" "For many reasons : He may be ashamed of the book, or have some other reason for not acknowledging its authorship. It may describe his friends too accurately. It may reveal important secrets. Even if his name does appear on the title page, I can imagine of a number of secret messages he might want to insert for the benefit of those able to understand it." "Perhaps it has often been done," Valeska suggested. "One wouldn't know, unless one had a reason to sus- pect the existence of such a thing and then one would have to be clever enough to read the cipher." Astro thought it over. "By Jove !" he exclaimed at last, "you're right ! Now I think of it there's one par- INTRODUCTION ticular book, published anonymously, that I've often been curious about. Clewfinder, I think I'll take a look at it." He went to his book-shelves again and took out the volume, opened it, and ran swiftly over the pages. "Let's see," he said; "if the author wanted his true name known, he would put it in an easy cipher, wouldn't he ? But if he didn't want it found out easily, it would be something more complex. This book has had a great sale it could hardly hurt the man to be suspected of writing it. Let's try the easiest possible method first." He ran swiftly over the pages. "Well, what d'you think!" he said, looking up. "I knew the man was pretty clever, and fairly versatile, but I never thought of him as the author of such a novel as Clew finder! Just look at it, Valeska." "You say it's the easiest possible method he has taken ?" Valeska said, as she looked over the pages. "The very easiest." Valeska studied on it a few minutes, then her face lighted. She hurriedly turned the pages, stopped here and there, and then smiled. "Well, that is a surprise, isn't it ! But why didn't he put his name on the title page ? I can't understand that !" "Give me the book !" Astro said, eagerly. "I believe he would be likely to tell that, too !" He took the vol- ume again, and again he ran hurriedly over the pages. "Yes ; as I thought," he said, finally. "He has the best of reasons." He handed the book back to his assistant. "The second cipher, surely, would be written in the second easiest way, shouldn't it ?" Astro nodded. "Naturally." INTRODUCTION Valeska sat for a while at her table, her head resting in her hand. Then she slowly turned the leaves, think- ing. In a moment she went faster, stopping as before, for a second, occasionally. She went back once, made sure, and recommenced. Finally she smiled. "Yes!" she said. 'Tie's right, too !" "It may have a third cipher message, too," she sug- gested, looking at the volume curiously. Astro thought it over. "Possibly, but that would be for the few, not for the ordinary 'smarty-cats.' I'll see when I have leisure for it. It will probably take a little more time to read it." "Well," said Valeska, "if other books have contained any such secret messages, it's strange that some one hasn't eventually discovered them." "That's no doubt because they didn't have modern publishers, who understood the practical psychology of advertising," said Astro. And he turned to play with his pet white lizard. THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES The Master of Mysteries MISSING JOHN HUDSON THE Master of Mysteries bent over the onyx lec- tern for a moment to gaze at the monograph, and then chuckled derisively. "Oh, these German Symbol- ists !" he said half aloud. "For unadulterated humor, give me a Teuton that has joined the ranks of the meta- physicians. It is hardly to be wondered that ninety per cent, of them have died in madhouses, and that Max Nordau has scheduled the rest of them for suicide !" He paused again to give a final glance at Ehrenfeld's little book on tone color in vowels. "The letter A," he translated rapidly, "suggests at once bright red, and symbolizes youth, or joy ; the letter I is suggestive of sky-blue, and symbolizes intimacy, or love et cetera, et cetera" He stopped from sheer exasperation. "Poor Arthur Rimbaud ! Poor old sodden Verlaine ! What crimes are committed in your cause !" The door opened softly, and he turned to greet a beautiful blond-haired girl who entered. "Valeska, if I were making up a list of the tonal es- sences in vowel sounds, I should say the A was yellow, in disagreement with our friend here, Mr. Ehren- I THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES feld. The U would be purple, verging on maroon. By the way, did you happen to notice that woman who was here this afternoon?" He gazed abstractedly at the floor. "It seemed to me," he went on after a few moments' thought, "as if she possessed distinctly pur- ple vibrations, denoting unrest." "Which one?" was the quick reply. "THe one in black satin, with jet ornaments, who wore gold-bowed eye-glasses, and limped ?" "Of course; but I should describe her as a woman who was worried and was jealous of her husband ; very suspicious of him ; also abnormally anxious for money." "I didn't talk to her ; I was too busy." "You must do a few palms some day, just to see how you are getting along in your study of the science of human nature. You noticed nothing else about her?" Valeska put the end of her pencil to her lips and con- sidered it abstractedly for a few moments. "Let me see " she began. "She carried two books, didn't she ?" "Precisely. One was a Baedeker's Northern Italy, and the other was a church report, Park Avenue Presbyterian. But the point is that she's coming here again, possibly this evening or to-morrow. She was literally perishing with the desire to ask me something which she did not dare to at the time." At this moment there came a ring at the office door- bell. "There she is now," went on the mystic. "Did you notice that was a nervous ring? It came twice. She wasn't quite sure the first time whether she had pressed hard enough. Show her in, Valeska." A few minutes intervened before his visitor ap- peared, pausing undecidedly on the threshold. "Could MISSING JOHN HUDSON 3 I see you for a short time about something of impor- tance ?" she questioned. "Have a seat, madam." Astro had risen, and placed a chair, apparently innocently enough, where the full glare of the drop electric light would illuminate her. His eyes did not appear to survey his client ; but under his long lashes they were busy noting detail after detail. She sat down and again hesitated to begin. "I I suppose that what I am about to say, sir, will be kept in perfect confidence ?" "Assuredly, madam. You are worried about your husband, I presume." She started in surprise, looked curiously at him, and then said, "Yes," in a faint tremulous whisper. At once she added, "You told me things this afternoon which were so wonderfully true that I thought I might trust you to give me some help on a far more im- portant affair which has been worrying me for some time. The fact is, Mr. Hudson, my husband, has dis- appeared. I haven't seen him for over a week." At this Astro manifested no surprise, and merely re- marked, "I was aware that he was away, madam, when I read your palm this afternoon. No doubt I can find him, if that is what you wish; but it may take some time ; for I shall have to gaze into my crystals and go into a trance. It will also be necessary for me to go to your house into his room, in fact in order that I may first take his atmosphere." "Oh, I understand," she exclaimed. "To tell the truth, I'm very, very much worried, and anxious to have you go to work as soon as possible. I daren't go to the police ; for, after all, there may be nothing seri- ous the matter, and it would cause a lot of talk ; and I 4 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES shouldn't want him ever to know that I'd employed a detective for anything like this. But of course you are different." "I am 'different', as you say," responded Astro, smil- ing. "I shall be able to trace him, no doubt, without any one ever suspecting me. Just when did you see him for the last time ?" "On Tuesday, the tenth." "And now it is the twentieth. He has had no busi- ness troubles ?" "On the contrary, he was doing remarkably well in his real estate business. We've been saving up to go abroad, you see ; it has been a plan we've had ever since we were married. It's a sort of delayed honeymoon, I suppose. We hoped to live in Italy for a year." She sighed. "You are a church-member, I presume ?" "Yes, I go to the Park Avenue Presbyterian church. Mr. Hudson is a deacon there." "I see. He is well-off, you say?" "Oh, no ; not that. But we have been quite encour- aged of late. Mr. Hudson was quite hopeful about our European trip." "Very well, Mrs. Hudson ; I shall be at your house at nine o'clock to-morrow." Valeska entered the room again as soon as the vis- itor had left, and looked at the palmist, with a question in her eyes. Astro waved his hand carelessly. "As I thought," he began, turning to his narghile, lighting it, and blow- ing the fumes through his nose luxuriously, "John MISSING JOHN HUDSON 5 Hudson has disappeared. She asked several pointed questions about him this afternoon, although she thought that she guarded herself well. They are both church-members, and their ambition is to go abroad. He is in the real estate business. Can you put two and two together ?" Valeska's pretty eyebrows creased themselves in thought. "Let me see. Judging from her appearance, they can't have been making very much money in the real estate business. You say they wanted to go to Europe, wanted to stay a year in Italy, wasn't it? and wanted all this badly. He'd naturally try to get the money in other ways ; perhaps illegitimately. It might even lead him into crime. Being religious, he would naturally want to hide this from his wife. Per- haps he has been suspected and has escaped." She looked up at him anxiously. "You're improving," said the Seer impassively. "In fact, that's just what I've been thinking myself. What we must find out is, what crime, if any, he has com- mitted. Perhaps he is dead ; perhaps he has run away with another woman. We must consider every possi- bility. Now, I can't very well take you up to the Hud- son house, as this is a delicate case ; so I wish you'd go over all the newspapers since the tenth and see what you can find that will help us." At ten o'clock next day Astro appeared in his psychic studio, where appointments with his fashionable clients kept him till two in the afternoon. At that time he called Valeska into his favorite corner of the studio where he did his lounging and studying. 6 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Well," he asked, "what did you get out of the news- papers ?" "I found so much that it's worse than if I'd found nothing at all, several murders, an elopement, and a bank robbery. I don't see how any of them help, though. The criminals all seem to be known. Per- haps Hudson was an accomplice." "My dear girl, never go on general principles ; gen- eral principles are the refuge of the hopelessly incom- petent and inane. If you will follow general principles long enough, you will find yourself in a class that is unlimited in its generalities and hidebound in its prin- ciples. If there is no significant detail that dovetails into Hudson's disappearance, we'll simply have to go about it in another way. You will be better able to judge when I tell you what happened this forenoon be- fore I came down to the studio here. "Mrs. Hudson was ready for me with the news that she had found her husband's check-book, and that it showed him to have an unexpected deposit in the bank of some six thousand dollars. Then she showed me into the bedroom ; but as they shared this apartment I thought it unnecessary to look there for anything sig- nificant. Hudson's own den was a bare office-like sort of place, small, and furnished with a leather couch, a bookcase, and an old office desk. In this, all the drawers were unlocked except one. I got Mrs. Hud- son's permission to pick that lock, and here is what I found." He smiled. "Of course, you understand these were absolutely necessary for me to get my vibrations." They both laughed at the remark, and he took from his pocket several articles, which he laid upon the table. There were, first, two advertising pictures posed by a MISSING JOHN HUDSON 7 pretty woman; evidently the same model in each in- stance, though used in connection with different prod- ucts. In one pose the girl held a loaf of bread in her hand; in the other she displayed her gleaming teeth whitened by "Dentabella," a new proprietary tooth- paste. She was pretty and quite young. Next was a card, curiously covered with an intricate series of in- terlaced curves in purple ink, a beautiful, symmetrical pattern, as accurately drawn as the lathe engraving on a bank-note. Last, there was a small printed page con- taining a calendar with all the months given. Oddly enough, the year was not printed at the top ; instead, above the calendar proper appeared the caption, "Num- ber fourteen/' Valeska looked at the collection curiously. "Well," she said at last, "I can't make much of anything except the girl's picture. It looks to me as if Hudson must have some special interest in her, to have two pictures of the same woman. We might find out who she is." "That's important, surely ; unless, of course, we can get hold of a better clue. But do you know what this is ?" He held up the card. "No, it looks to me like a fairy's lace handkerchief design or a sea-shell." "That is a harmonic curve," said Astro. "Sometimes it's called a vibration curve, and it is traced by a com- pound or twin elliptic pendulum." "What's that? I am getting farther away than ever." "Suppose," continued Astro, "you tie one end of a string to a nail in the ceiling, while the other end is looped up to another nail, also in the ceiling. Now, from the lower point of this V, hang a string with a 8 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES weight on the end. You observe, the weight will be at the end of a Y, and if you give a rotary motion to the compound pendulum so formed, the weight will travel in an intricate but regular curve, dependent on the relative lengths of the two parts of the pendulum as it swings forward and backward and right and left at the same time. This curve was made by such a one, only more complicated, and arranged so as to trace a line on a plane surface. The curves so formed, curious to say, correspond actually to the musical vibrations of various chords." "It's interesting, but rather intricate, and I don't see how it helps us much with Hudson," said Valeska. "How about this calendar, and what's the 'Number fourteen' for?" "That," said the Master of Mysteries, "is a page from a universal calendar ; that is, a calendar that can be used for any year. This is the last page of the pam- phlet, as it takes just fourteen different diagrams to in- clude all the calendar possibilities, seven different dia- grams* in which the year begins on a different day of the week, and another set of seven for the leap years. There's a list in front, probably giving the number of the diagram to be used for each individual year." "Oh !" exclaimed the girl. "That reminds me, now. I did see something about a 'two-hundred-year calen- dar'. Where was it? Let me think. Yes, I have it. It was in an account of a body that was found drowned. Stupid of me to overlook that ! I'll see if I can find it." "Get it," Astro said, "while I think this over." She flew to her file and began to go hurriedly through the sheets of paper. "Here it is ! Here it is !" she cried. Then she read breathlessly : MISSING JOHN HUDSON 9 "The body of an unknown man was found this morning floating in the East River near Thirty- eight Street. The corpse was that of a man of fifty-five or sixty years, and had evidently been in in the water some ten days. The lower part of the face was completely covered by a full beard. The body was dressed in a black diagonal cutaway coat and striped trousers, and was doubtless that of a gentleman in reduced circumstances. In the trousers pocket was found a bunch of keys, a small sum of money, and a two-hundred-year cal- endar. No marks indicating foul play were dis- covered on the body, which is awaiting identifica- tion at the morgue." "That corresponds in a general way with the descrip- tion of Hudson that his wife gave me," said Astro. "She had no photograph of him taken within the last twenty years. There's a chance that it may be he, in which case it looks to me like murder ; but I'll have to go down to the morgue and see, anyway, on account of the calendar. I think you'd better let me do that alone, while you try to discover something about this 'Dentabella' girl. Come back here as soon as you have located her." No one would have recognized in the smart, stylishly dressed man who emerged from the studio a half-hour later, the languid picturesque Master of Mysteries, Astro the Seer. He walked briskly along, his eyes eager and alert to every impression. At the morgue he had no difficulty in obtaining permission to view the remains of the man he sought, and to inspect the cloth- ing and the articles that had been found in the pocket. The body was that of a middle-aged man of benevo- io THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES lent appearance, the face showing weakness rather than resolution in its features. The hands were delicately shaped, with pointed slender fingers. He had been apparently a dreamer, a mystic, rather than a man of vigorous life and practical affairs. Astro turned to in- spect the articles displayed before his gaze. The two- hundred-year calendar which had been mentioned in the newspaper corresponded exactly to the page found in Hudson's desk; and on opening it he found that page twenty-nine, containing table number fourteen, had been torn out. What was more remarkable, how- ever, was the fact that with it was a collection of water- soaked, purple-stained cards. Each contained a "har- monic curve", such as had been found in Hudson's drawer. One such coincidence was unusual. Two pointed conclusively to some connection between the two men ; if, indeed, the corpse were not that of Hud- son himself. This point, however, was soon settled. Calling up Mrs. Hudson, he found that her husband's hair was scant and brown. The hair of the dead man was strong, slightly curly, and reddish. It was not Hudson. Astro walked slowly home, plunged in thought, and looked neither to the right nor the left as he advanced. A block before he reached his studio he stopped stock- still for a moment, gazing in front of him ; then, with a quick turn, he walked rapidly back, took a cross-town car, and got off at Second Avenue. Along this he hur- ried till he came to a second-hand bookstore, where on one of the stands outside the window, there was a col- lection of pamphlets and magazines. He ran his eye over tKe names: The Swastika, Universal Brother- hood, Vibrations, The New Wisdom, and Cosmos. He MISSING JOHN HUDSON 11 took up one of these and turned to the advertising pages in the rear ; then he tried another. It was not till he had read through the Swastika that he was sat- isfied and smiled. He paid for the copy, hailed a pass- ing cab, and was driven to his studio, where Valeska was already waiting for him. He announced to her at once that the dead man was not Hudson, and gave a brief description of the latter, whereupon she told Astro the story of her own search. "I didn't find the girl ; but I traced her antecedents. First I went to the advertising manager of the 'Denta- bella' company, and told him I wanted to get hold of the model he had used in the ad. Finally I wheedled her name out of him it was Agnes Vivian and went up to the Harlem address he gave me. The young lady, however, no longer lived there; but I got the woman of the house to talking and found out that our little friend had left without settling her bill. So I in- timated that I was looking for Miss Vivian to pay her some money I had borrowed, and in this way got the landlady to tell me everything she could that would help me to locate the missing girl. She had been pos- ing for photographers ; but now it seems as if she had got another job. At all events, a gentleman answering to Hudson's description had called on her several times, with the result that one day she had left and had never come back. She had sent for her trunk next day ; but the landlady would not let it go, and could not ascer- tain where it was to be taken. She had an idea, though, that the girl was working on East Thirty-ninth Street somewhere; for she had overheard her telephoning one day previous to her departure. So you see," Va- leska concluded, "our friend Hudson has probably left 12 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES his wife for good and all ; or rather for evil, perhaps." "We'll soon find out," said Astro. "We'll go up and call on him this afternoon." "What ! Have you found out where he is already ?" "I'm inclined to think he's living, temporarily at least, at 198 East Thirty-ninth Street." "With that girl ?" Valeska's eyes blazed. "Not at all. The only trouble with him is that he loves his wife too much." Valeska still stared. "That isn't likely, there are very few men like that nowadays. But I'm very much relieved ; for I rather liked the Vivian girl's face ; it's attractive." "Yes," Astro assented, "and Hudson is paying her to be attractive. He has a good business head, this man Hudson. But we must find out first what is the cause of the death of Professor Dove." "Why, who is he?" "He is the man whose body is now lying in the morgue." "How did you find that out?" "Look at this," said Astro. He pointed to an adver- tisement in The Swastika: LET ME HELP YOU! Get into your own Vibration; develop your latent faculties, inherent possibilities; and develop your power, health, success, beauty, and love. Send 50c with name and birth date for trial read- ing and Vibratory Curve. Prof. Dove, 198 East 39th-St, N. Y. "And that's what those curves are for, then?" Va- leska asked. MISSING JOHN HUDSON 13 "Well, that's what Professor Dove used them for; to mystify his dupes; or, by the looks of him, it's more than likely that he believed in them himself." "Hudson must have believed in them too, then," she remarked, "or he wouldn't have been keeping them in his desk drawer. Was he a dupe, do you think ?" "You'll recall that Hudson had several of them in his possession. If he had had only one, I'd say he might have been a dupe." "But what if he did have several ?" queried Valeska. "Do you think Hudson murdered the professor ?" "Ah, my dear, that's what I'd like to know myself. I propose that we call at the Vibratory office, or what- ever they call it. You see, I doubt if Professor Dove ever had six thousand dollars, or even six thousand cents ; he was not worth murdering for his money. One thing is certain, Hudson didn't murder Miss Vivian; and I'm glad of that, for I'd really like to see her. Sup- pose we go up to Thirty-ninth Street and find out what sort of place it is." As they walked across town the Master of Mysteries said, "That's a very clever graft, that vibration curve business. The more I think of it, the more I like it. You see, as there are two adjustments, the length of the upper and the length of the lower pendulum, you can get an infinite number of vibrations, and conse- quently an infinite number of curves. Therefore, you can attach any significance you please to the ratio be- tween the two. Suppose, for instance, you divide off the top arm that corresponds to the upper part of the Y into inches, and call each inch a certain year. Then divide the lower arm in a similar way into days ; say these are eighths of an inch each. If you set your com- 14 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES pound pendulum to the two marks any day and any year you can produce a curve for any birthday you please, and you can always reproduce it to order. It's a very good plan to have some sort of scientific basis for this kind of thing, on account of the inquisitiveness of the post-office authorities. If you simply have a set of form letters for answers, the chances are that you'll have a fraud order against you and you'll not get your mail with its desirable money-orders and stamp en- closures." "And the calendar?" "Merely to tell easily what day of the week any birthday fell on. For instance, December 22, 1883, was on a Saturday, and so on." "What I am most interested in is the life readings," said the girl, "and the advice on how to acquire beauty." "Or love?" Astro added, with a smile. "I'll try to do that myself. It's more exciting." From across the street the two now reconnoitered number 198. Below, at the musty stairway, appeared, among other signs, the legend, "Prof. Dove, Astrolo- ger." It was already growing dark, and above, in a window on the third floor, a dim light appeared. The shade was drawn. "I'm going to investigate more closely," said Astro. "You wait outside here and watch the window. If I raise the shade, come up !" So saying, he crossed, and ascended the stairs. As he reached the landing, however, he met a young woman coming down, who, at a glance, proved to be the Miss Vivian of the "Dentabella" advertisements. Astro stood still in front of her, barring the way. MISSING JOHN HUDSON 15 "Would you please tell me where Professor Dove is?" he inquired. "Why, I I don't know, I'm sure." She looked him up and down curiously. "Then would you mind telling me where I can find Mr. John Hudson?" Still she showed no sign of surprise ; but drew her- self up proudly. "There's no such person in this build- ing that I know of," she asserted. "I thought I had seen you in Professor Dove's of- fice," continued the crystal-gazer suavely. Something in his manner now seemed to alarm her. "Indeed ! I'm a stranger here. You must be mistaken, really." "You have never heard of Mr. Hudson ?" he went on. "What right have you to question me in this way ?" she demanded boldly; and yet, oddly enough, she did not try to pass him. "I have the right for two reasons. First, because the post-office is very curious as to the nature of concerns doing a mail-order business, and second, because the police would very much like to know something more concerning the death of Professor Dove." She scarcely stopped to hear the rest of the sentence before she turned and ran up-stairs. Astro, though he bounded after her in a moment, was a moment too late ; for the door was slammed and locked in his face. "The police!" he heard her cry, and at once there was a commotion in the room. A window was thrown up hurriedly; then all became still. He waited in pa- tience, listening intently. The first sound audible, how- ever, came from the stairway beneath him. Assured that some one was coming up, he turned and saw Va- 16 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES leska beckoning frantically. He tiptoed to her, and she whispered : "He climbed out through the window into that of the next house ! Can't we catch him there ?" "We'll have to, or lose the whole game!" he cried. "It was a bit premature ; but perhaps it will be as well, after all. Come along, and look out for trouble. I'll have to bluff it out now, though I have no desire to im- personate a police officer, that's a dangerous game. But we must hurry." In an instant more they were down-stairs and hidden in the entrance of the next building. They had not long to wait. A man, bareheaded and excited, came running down, and would have dashed by, had not As- tro's hand immediately clutched him. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Hudson," said the Master of Mysteries, "but I wish to ask you a few questions." "Who are you?" The man's voice was full of anx- iety. "A friend," said Astro. Valeska put out her hand and took that of the fright- ened old man. "Don't be alarmed, Mr. Hudson. Really you are quite safe with us." He gazed at her in dull astonishment. "What do you want, anyhow?" he exclaimed peevishly, attempt- ing to recover a bold front, though his face was hag- gard with terror. "I've found all I really want," Astro replied quietly ; "but at the same time I'd like to have my curiosity grat- ified. What, for instance, do you know concerning the death of Professor Dove?" Hudson started, and stared in the young man's face. "What! Is he dead? When did he die ?" MISSING JOHN HUDSON 17 "He died at about the same time you disappeared from home." Hudson turned white. "Great God ! You don't sus- pect me of anything ?" "I'd like to have you explain a few things, that's all," was the quiet response. "Who are you?" The old man had pulled himself together now, and was more defiant. "My dear sir," said the Seer calmly, "I am one who has been sent by your wife to discover your where- abouts. As I said, that mission is now accomplished. At the same time you must admit that the circum- stances in which I find you are suspicious. You have just escaped from Professor Dove's office, and Pro- fessor Dove now lies unidentified in the morgue. You are in possession of a considerable sum of money, re- cently acquired. You are, moreover, found in the com- pany of a very pretty young woman. Surely all this will interest Mrs. Hudson. It remains for you to say how much of it I shall report." Hudson trembled violently and put his face in his hands. "Oh, my God! you mustn't tell her! You can't! I'm innocent of any crime, so help me God! Wait ! Come up to the office, and I'll explain it all." Astro and Valeska retraced their steps in company with the fugitive, and soon found themselves before the office door. All was dark. Hudson gave three knocks, paused, and then delivered another. The door was opened silently. Miss Vivian stood before them in a dim light. At sight of the two strangers she staggered back. "Oh!" she cried in alarm. "Are you arrested, Mr. Hudson?" i8 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "I don't know," he answered childishly as he turned up the light. There was a litter of papers strewn upon the office floor. A long table was piled with letters opened and unopened ; there was a typewriter on a stand, a copy- ing-press, a high desk with ledgers, and in a corner, suspended from hooks in the ceiling, the compound pendulum that Astro had described. On the horizontal shelf, fixed to the end of the pendulum, was a white card; and, extending from a table near by, an arm carrying a glass pen projected so that, when the pendu- lum was swung, a curve in purple ink was traced on the card. A heavy weight depended from the bottom of the instrument. Hudson sunk into a chair and groaned. The girl waited without a word, watching him. Then Valeska approached him. "Mr. Hudson," she said gently, "pray don't take, it all so hard. I'm sure that you are innocent, and we'll both help you. If you tell us everything, we can find some way of saving you." He raised his head and looked at Astro, who nodded in confirmation. Hudson took courage. "The first thing, the most important thing, of course, is to explain about Professor Dove's death. I have no idea how it occurred. Indeed, I didn't know he was dead until you told me. I suspected that something fatal had hap- pened ; but I knew nothing definite." "When did you see him last?" "Two weeks ago, but Miss Vivian has seen him since then." The girl took it up. "It was here in this office that I saw him. He was intoxicated, and he frightened me ; MISSING JOHN HUDSON 19 so I went out and telephoned to Mr. Hudson about it. Then, when I got back, the professor had gone." "You will understand," hastily explained Hudson, "that Professor Dove, when in his right mind, was a most gentlemanly and kind-hearted man ; but when he was drunk there was no doing anything with him. I have had several unpleasant experiences with him be- fore. He'd go out and wander all over the town in a sort of daze, talking aloud to himself about his psychic beliefs and all that. He was especially fond of the river, and once we found him sitting away out on a pier and gazing into the water. But I know absolutely nothing about his death, sir, I assure you. Now, about my being here. I'd like to explain " I i "That is not necessary," interrupted Astro, "I know everything I wish to, now." "What do you mean ? What do you know about my private affairs ?" "I'll tell you, Mr. Hudson. First, for a long time you have been anxious to discover some way of making more money than you could in the real estate business. You and your wife wanted to go abroad ; and you are very fond of her and naturally wished to please her. Thinking it over and watching the advertisements, you saw that the quickest way to make money was to go into some sort of fortune-telling business and play on the credulity of fools. Knowing of the compound pendulum and the curves it traces so mysteriously, you decided to adopt that as the basis of your graft. You found a willing helper in Professor Dove, who was well, just a little cracked, and inclined to believe thor- oughly in his own psychic powers. You backed him in this enterprise," Astro waved his hand round the 20 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES room; "but, being a church-member, you naturally couldn't afford to let any one, your wife especially, know of your being engaged in a business that was so undignified and of such dubious morality. "You advertised, and did so well that you needed more help. You couldn't afford to be known in the matter, and so, when Miss Vivian, here, came to your office to get work, you selected her as assistant. Not wishing to be seen too much in her company, you went to call on her, and finally induced her to help the pro- fessor. Then the professor went on one of his periodi- cal debauches, she telephoned to you, and you came down here to straighten out the correspondence, which was becoming larger and more profitable every day. There was more work to it than you at first thought. You had to stay here that night; then you became afraid of Dove's disappearance and of the post-office in- spectors. So you buckled down to a night and day job of it until you could clean up the money before you were caught. You are now about ready to quit the af- fair altogether. Is this correct?" The old man, who had been listening in great aston- ishment, assented. "But are you going to report all this to my wife, sir?" he faltered. "It will simply kill her. Can't you keep this from her ? I promise to give up the business right now." Astro drew a telegraph blank from his pocket. There was a message already written on the yellow slip, and he handed it over to Hudson. It read : "ROCHESTER, Oct. 21, 4 p. M. "Why no letter? Did you receive mine? Re- turning Empire State Limited to-night. JOHN." MISSING JOHN HUDSON 21 "Ring for a messenger boy and send this," continued the Master of Mysteries. "She will not know that it isn't a genuine telegram. A woman in her state of mind won't notice anything, I'm sure; and I think if you turn up at the Grand Central, appearing to have come in on that train, she will be there to meet you with open arms." Tears appeared in the old man's eyes. "I'll do it !" he said. "And to-morrow I'll buy a couple of tickets for Naples. God bless you, sir, for your kindness !" "And what's to become of me?" spoke up Miss Vivian. Astro looked at her indulgently. "You may go on with this work here, for all I care," he said. "It's a very tidy little business apparently, and none of my affair. But I advise you rather to apply for a position in Mr. Hudson's office. I don't think, however, that with your face and figure you will have much trouble in getting employment." "Oh, I'll see to that," said John Hudson. "Well," Valeska said with relief, as she and Astro left the office, "it's all over now." "Not at all !" remarked her companion bruskly. "I haven't earned my fee yet. Come into this drug store with me a moment." He went to the telephone and called up Mrs. John Hudson. "Mrs. Hudson," he said, "I've been consult- ing my crystals, and have just seen your husband in Rochester. He was taking a train for New York. He had just consummated a real estate deal there which had been very profitable, and I think you will see him 22 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES safe and sound again to-night. Kindly send my check to the studio. Thank you. Good night." "My crystals are certainly wonderful," said Astro, laughing. "Yes," said Valeska, "and I think you're rather won- derful yourself." THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE HESITATING at the door of the studio long enough only to send to Astro a quick surrepti- tious message with her eyes indicating, apparently, contempt for the visitor Valeska announced, "Mr. Barrister," and left the two men alone in the room. The newcomer looked about a bit foolishly, and then turned to the palmist. "You're Astro, I suppose ?" Astro, in robe and turban, bowed gravely and his glance slumbered. "Eh ah the fact is, sir," continued Barrister, "that I have come here about a peculiar matter, and solely, sir, to please my wife. She has a woman's weak- ness for anything occult, anything full of folderol and fake. You see, I don't take any stock in it my- self ; but " "I understand perfectly," said the Master of Mys- teries without apparent annoyance. He seemed, in fact, to be bored already. The other teetered affably on his toes and heels, con- descension in his manner. "She had heard that you professed to be some kind of fortune-teller, besides do- ing this palmistry business. Is that so ?" "I have had occasion at times to use certain powers which are ah supposed to be occult. I say 'sup- posed to be', out of deference to your manifest feelings in the matter, Mr. Barrister." 23 24 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Hum !" said the prospective client quickly. "Well, whether they are or not doesn't matter in this case, as I'm here simply to please my wife. If I didn't come, she'd come, you know. However, if you are able to locate what we want, I'll be willing to acknowledge anything you wish, and pay you accordingly. I sup- pose you are a medium, then ?" "Some call it that," acknowledged the reserved young man. "I myself assert that I have merely done a few things that others find it too hard to do." "Such as" "Kindly let me look at your hand." "Bosh!" said Barrister; but he gazed at his own palm, nevertheless, with a new air of curiosity, and after a moment stretched it toward the palmist. "Well, see what you can find in it !" he said. Astro looked at it negligently ; then, under his half- shut lids his eyes sped rapidly over his client's person, the neat business suit beneath the black dress overcoat, the daintily tied scarf, the highly polished shoes, and the general air of careful grooming. Then they re- turned to the hand before him. Finally, the Seer leaned back listlessly and smiled. "You went to see Anna Held last night, and were bored. You once had your pockets picked, and will probably have it happen to you again. You are inter- ested in Egyptology and, apropos, I wish you'd look at my porphyry sphinx there and give me some idea of its age." Barrister stared, and grew a bit uneasy. Then, ap- parently to hide his embarrassment, he turned to the carved image and surveyed it with the air of a connois- seur. As he presented his back to the Seer, the latter THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 25 swiftly stooped over, picked up a return check of a New York theater, good the night before, and slid it into one of the pockets of his silk robe. "That's about 1400 B. C," said Barrister easily. "Where on earth did you get hold of it?" "From my godfather, in Cairo," said the palmist. "Well," said Barrister, returning, "I've no time now to examine it closely." "And the matter which worries your wife?" Astro inquired. Again his visitor hesitated, looked about the room, and gazed again at the sphinx. "Well," he said finally, "I'll tell you." He seated himself and went ori : "I have, or rather did have, a First Folio Shakespeare, one of the few good ones of the thirty-seven copies extant. It was stolen from my library yesterday. That's what I want to find" "That, and the one who stole it also, I suppose ?" "Er yes. Yes, certainly." "An interesting sort of quarry, and rather unusual. Have you been to the police ?" Barrister pursed his lips and shook his head. "No. You see, there wouldn't be much use in that, would there ? I'm afraid the thief, if he found he was suspected, would destroy the book. He can't sell it, anyway ; for these folios are as well known to collectors as good race-horses are to touts. He can't get away with it ; for every bookman in the world will soon know it if he offers it for sale. I want it back, of course; but it is my wife's idea, this coming to you about it. She gave me the book when we were first married, and so, naturally, I value it at even more than its own great intrinsic value." 26 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Have you ever had any offers for it ?" Astro asked carelessly. "What? Offers? Oh, no; no indeed; no offers at all. Why should I want to sell it ? No, sir ! It would be useless for any one to attempt to buy it." "But nobody is harming you by offering. When did you miss it ?" "Last night, after I came home from the theater. I went to see Anna Held, as you said, though how the mischief you knew it I can't see, and we came home early, disgusted. We happened to be talking about the Folio, and my wife walked to the case and looked for it. It was gone." "Had the lock been tampered with?" "Yes, forced. The window had been pried open with a jimmy, too. It was evidently done by a burglar who knew just what he wanted. But it doesn't look like a professional's work; for the book would be too hard to dispose of." "I see," said Astro. He gazed away into space and puffed at his water-pipe meditatively. "Mr. Barrister, I'll try to find it for you. If I succeed in getting the book or the person who stole it from you, my charge will be five hundred dollars." "All right," said Barrister, rising. "Will you want to come up to my house and look over the place ?" "I think I can put myself more en rapport with the case, if I do ; I want to feel the vibrations, so to speak, and no doubt I shall get an impression of the aura of the culprit if I am on the spot. The rest I shall do with the crystals." Barrister did not conceal his scorn. "Oh, very well," THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 27 He said, "I suppose it will at least satisfy my wife. When will you be up ?" "To-morrow morning, early. I'll ask you to disturb nothing, and even to keep away from the room until I come." "There's nothing to disturb," Barrister commented ; "but I'll see to it that nobody interferes with your magic." And so saying, he took up his hat, gave the sphinx one last glance, and left the room. When he was gone the palmist doffed his regalia and yawned. A moment later Valeska reentered the studio. Astro gazed at her reflectively. "Did you notice that man's watch-charm ?" he asked. "Why, there was something funny about it; but I couldn't make the thing out exactly." "Did you ever see an Egyptian scarab?" "Why, yes. But he didn't have one, did he?" "He used to have one. You know how they mount them, with a pin through the beetle so it can revolve ? The setting and the pin were there ; but not the stone. You must look closer next time." "What else did I miss ?" she asked, pouting. "You didn't say anything about his carrying his purse in his outside overcoat pocket. He will always be an easy mark for the light-fingered gentry if he keeps that up. It's lucky for him that he's rich." "Oh, he is wealthy, of course ! I got that much right, anyway. He looked as if he were very well-off, in fact." "I should imagine he was, with a First Folio Shake- 28 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES speare lying loose in his library! That's what we've got to find." "It's interesting?" "Interesting ! I should say so ! It's a regular kid- naping case. Talk about diamonds! Why, they're stupid things. Every one likes diamonds, and they can be cut up into smaller stones and readily disposed of, if you're careful about it. But you can't cut a page out of a First Folio, you can't even hint that you'd like to sell it, without all the world knowing about it. Book- hunters are the most determined and interesting col- lectors in the world. I know of no passion to equal it." He walked over to the telephone and called up a leading dealer in rare volumes. "I wish to ask about a First Folio Shakespeare. Are 'there any bidders in the open market for a copy?" He wrote down rapidly on a tab as he spoke into the re- ceiver, "William A. Hepson. Oh, yes, the million- aire. Ah, thank you." He slammed the instrument down vigorously, snatched up a telegraph blank, rapidly wrote a mes- sage, and handed it to Valeska. She read it aloud : "WILLIAM A. HEPSON, Chicago, 111. Will you give four thousand dollars for a guaranteed First Folio Shakespeare? Wire reply to Jane Gore, 181 East 18th Street, New York." "Why!" she exclaimed. "Have you located it al- ready?" "Not quite. But I have an idea, and this will help, if we get an answer by to-morrow morning"." "Who is he?" THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 29 "He's a Chicago beef packer who offered four thou- sand dollars for the book a while ago; but, curiously enough, he was in town this week." "Is he in the city now ?" "That's what I should like very much to know my- self. In the meantime, send this, get the answer at your place, and bring it to me in the morning. Then we'll go up and see Mrs. Barrister." Valeska appeared next morning with a yellow en- velope. "He refuses your offer," she said. "Good !" exclaimed the Master of Mysteries, rubbing his hands in satisfaction. "He has the Folio, then, as I suspected. Now, to work! This case already begins to offer delicate little labyrinths which are nothing short of delicious to the analytical mind. We'll lose no time getting out to Mrs. Barrister's, and I want you to use your eyes better than you did last night. I expect you to see everything that I don't. Remember to watch me, though, and be ready for instructions. Notice any sig- nal that I may happen to give you. For instance, if I raise my .eyes to the ceiling, my next look will be at what I want you to notice. If I touch anything, you're to take it and look at it carefully, and follow what I say next. If I cough, you're to create some diversion so that I shan't be noticed for a few moments." Valeska laughed. "You'll be doing a trance next. Funny how well the bluff always works, isn't it ?" Astro frowned. "My dear," he said pompously, "there are waves of the ether, N-rays, X-rays, actinic and ultraviolet vibrations, to which I am exceedingly susceptible. I have an inner sense and an esoteric 30 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES knowledge of life and its mysteries that is hidden from all who have not lived for cycles and eons in solitude and contemplation with the Mahatmas of the Hima- layas!" Valeska, instead of being impressed, broke into a rippling laugh as they went up the avenue. The Barristers lived in a large, solemn brownstone house off Fifth Avenue, one of a hundred similar domi- ciles, heavily furnished, dim, close, lusterless, quiet, warm. Astro and his assistant waited in the reception- room till Mrs. Barrister appeared. She was large, plumply built, with gray hair artfully pompadoured and undulated, and a pleasant, though not very intelli- gent smile; a woman that still kept herself well and carried herself well, treasuring the last remains of what had been a comfortable prettiness. She greeted them cordially. "I'm so glad youVe come !" she announced. "Seems as if I couldn't wait any longer; for I felt sure that you could help us if anybody could, and I do feel so terribly about this robbery ! You know it was my wed- ding gift to Mr. Barrister. My husband agreed with me that it wasn't exactly a case for the police, and we don't want any more talk about it than is absolutely necessary. I've heard so much about you, Mr. Astro ; for a great many of my friends have gone to you, and you told them such remarkable things ! Then that case of your finding the Sacarnet sapphire gave me consid- erable confidence in you. Why, my own mother once recovered a purse she had lost, by going to a medium about it !" She bustled about amiably. "Now, I suppose you want to see the library, don't you? You know Mr. Barrister doesn't believe in any- THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 31 thing supernatural, and he wouldn't stay. But I'll show you in." During this long speecH, Valeska's eyes traveled over Mrs. Barrister's portly person ; but the Master of Mys- teries seemed rapt in thought, abstracted and inatten- tive. He rose now, however, and followed through the folding doors into the library beyond. The shades had been drawn as if a death had occurred ; she raised them, showing a square room, every wall lined with glass- covered bookcases. She went up to one, beside a win- dow, and threw open a door. It was as if she were displaying a rifled tomb. "Here is where it was kept, right in there. You can see the marks of a chisel or something near the lock. The frame was pried open. Isn't it dreadful? That book was like an only child to us !" Astro apparently gave it scarcely a glance. "Mrs. Barrister," he said, "I'll ask you kindly to leave me here alone for fifteen minutes. I am extraordinarily sensitive to vibrations ; but I must be undisturbed while I concentrate my mind sufficiently to induce the proper psychic conditions. Meanwhile my assistant will stay with you." Mrs. Barrister was impressed, and withdrew with- out further questioning. The door of the library was shut, and the two women sat down by a window in the reception-room. Valeska immediately began her own line of investigation. "When did you last see the book ?" she asked. "Thursday afternoon at about four o'clock I showed it to a caller, and then locked the case as usual. We got home from the theater that night a little after ten, and went almost immediately to the library, as we 32 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES had been having a discussion about one of the lines in Macbeth. Then we saw that the book was gone." t "Do you know of any one having entered the room, besides yourself and Mr. Barrister, between four and ten?" "Mary, my maid, was in with the tea things ; that's all I know." "And you don't suspect her?" "Oh, no ! She has been with me for years." "And the caller?" Mrs. Barrister thought for a moment before an- swering. Then she said, "It was a Mr. White. I con- fess I don't like him very well. But he's more a friend of my husband's than mine. In fact, my husband came in before Mr. White left ; so I went up-stairs and left the two men alone. I had an idea there was some trouble between them." "Does your husband belong to any club?" "Yes, the Booklovers, and the Stage Club. So does Mr. White. Why?" "Oh," said Valeska carelessly, "Mr. Barrister seemed such a man of the world, just the man to be- long to clubs, you know. But who showed Mr. White out the door?" "Why, Mr. Barrister went with him himself. You see, it couldn't have been possible for Mr. White to have concealed the book ; it's quite large, you know ?" "You have looked -everywhere, of course ?" "Oh, yes. We went immediately to work, searched Mary's room at her request, and then everywhere else in the house. It simply isn't here." At this moment Astro opened the door and walked silently into the room. THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 33 "Oh," Mrs. Barrister suddenly exclaimed, "I quite forgot to tell Mr. Astro something that I'm sure is important! It's a clue we discovered while we were searching the library after we had found the scratches and the broken lock of the case. Here it is!' 7 She drew a scrap of paper from her purse and handed it to him. It was evidently the corner of a letter, and bore a few words written in violet ink. The palmist held it lightly in his hand for a mo- ment, then asked, "Has any one else had this, except you ?" "Oh, yes. Mr. Barrister himself found it, and, of course, he examined it carefully; but he could make nothing of it." Astro cast his eyes to the ceiling, and then down on the paper again. He pressed it to his forehead, then handed it to his assistant. "I shall have to wait until the last influences are evaporated, leaving the original personality of the writer to assert itself." He whirled quickly about, placed his hand to his lips, and coughed. "Oh, Mrs. Barrister!" Valeska exclaimed. "Look at this paper again for a moment. Come to the light by the window here. It seemed to me I saw a water- mark that showed through when I held it to the light. See if you can see it." As she spoke she drew the woman into the bay-window so that she stood with her back to the room. Astro stepped quickly over to a bookcase against the wall, and, keeping his eyes carefully on Mrs. Bar- rister, reached to the top of one of the shelves. Four or five books protruded about an inch from the rest of the line. Astro's hand curved over these and down 34 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES behind until it touched the shelf. Before Mrs. Bar- rister had turned again, his hand was withdrawn. He spoke sharply. "Could you lend me a screw-driver?" "Certainly." She rang for the maid, who appeared, and was sent on the errand. In a few minutes she re- turned. "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Barrister, but I can't find it. We always keep it in the kitchen closet; but it's not there now." "I thought so," said Astro. "But one question, Mary, before you go. First, let me see your palm." The girl held out her hand timidly, with wonder in her face. The Master of Mysteries felt of it tentatively, then looked directly into her eyes. "Mary," he said, "where were you after dinner-time on Thursday; from then until Mr. and Mrs. Barrister returned home?" "In the kitchen with the cook most of the time, sir. I went up into the dining-room beside the library once or twice, though." "You heard nothing unusual?" "Nothing at all, sir." "How did you get that violet stain on your finger ?" Mary looked at it calmly. "It was from writing a letter the other day. I couldn't get it all off." "I think I have stayed as long as is necessary," said Astro, turning to Mrs. Barrister, "and now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go. I shall report to your husband as soon as I find anything." iLeaving with his assistant, he walked slowly down THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 35 the front steps. As soon as they were out of sight of the windows, he said, "Well, what did you find out while I was investigating, Valeska?" She narrated the conversation while Astro walked thoughtfully beside her, his eyes roaming from side to side, until they lighted upon a line of ash barrels near the curb. He stopped. "See here, Valeska!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I wish you'd go into this house and find out in some way how long these barrels have been standing here. It's a shame the way the Board of Health neglects its duties. Do you see ? Tell them you have been sent by a Civic Reform committee to find out if there's any complaint." He walked on, smiling to himself. "Entirely too clever," he murmured; "so clever that it's positively stupid!" He approached the ash cans and surveyed their contents. From the top of one he gingerly drew out a torn sheet of paper. Another barrel showed, among its overflowing contents, several tin cans, a shoe, a lot of broken bottles, and a mass of sawdust. He gave them a hard look, then sauntered on till Va- leska caught up with him. "Those barrels have been out since Thursday," she said. He smiled and made no comment. "Now," he said, "what I want you to do is to call on this Mr. White. You had better be getting subscriptions for a book. Get one for a sample at some shop, something rather silly too Bibliophiles and Their Hobbies and you are to find out White's private opinion of Barrister. Barrister, you understand, has already subscribed. You may work it up any way you like, only be sure to get some expression of opinion." 36 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES It was almost noon before Valeska returned from her errand, and, as by this time the palmist's outer of- fice was filled with waiting clients, it was the lunch hour before she could speak to him. "I shall have to raise my fee again/' he said. "Ten dollars a reading doesn't seem to stop them at all. I'll make them come only by appointment after this. But what did you find out?" The girl's eyes sparkled with news. "Hepson's our man, Hepson via White, I guess. Hepson saw Bar- rister, too, at the club the other morning. Hepson's gone ; but White" "Hepson, Hepson, Hepson!" mimicked the Seer, with a smile at her eagerness. "But pray give us more news about White." Valeska laughed. "Well, he's awfully sore on Bar- rister for some reason. He believes Mr. Barrister's a fool, I gather." "He isn't in love with Mrs. Barrister, is he ?" 1 "No ! He's in love with himself, I think. He said, for one thing, that Barrister knew no more about books than he did about poker." "Poker! How's that?" "Why, I told him I had sold several copies to mem- bers of the Stage Club, I got their names out of the Blue Book, and knew they played pretty hard there, so we got to chatting about our luck. You see, I told him I liked to play myself, and he began telling me how successful he always was. Then he said he had hard work with some of his friends to collect the gambling debts they owed him." "I see." The Master of Mysteries turned into his den, and Valeska followed him. THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 37 "Why, what's this?" she asked, pointing to a large, flat, heavy parcel on the table. "Why, it's addressed to Mr. Hepson in Chicago! Oh! have you found the Folio already ?" Astro smiled. "I told you some time ago that Hep- son already had it. But this is getting warm." Valeska fingered the package. "It looks just like a big atlas wrapped up." "It is," said Astro. "I bought it at a book-shop after I left you." "What in the world do you want to send it to Hep- son for, then ?" "I don't particularly. But I should like to show it to the clerk at a certain branch office of the Adams Ex- press Company here." "Oh, I do wish you'd explain !" Valeska exclaimed. "I'd rather let you do a little thinking for yourself. You have seen White. You know that Hepson was in town. You have heard Barrister's story. Nothing could be simpler. For instance, how about Mary the maid, and the violet ink stains? What would you make of that?" He stopped a moment, smiling. "I will tell you, however, that I found the screw-driver that was used to open the bookcase with and to force the window with; for it wasn't a jimmy at all." "Where was it?" "You recall when I gave you the signal to distract Mrs. Barrister's attention? You did it very cleverly. At that moment I was more interested in the appear- ance of several books in a case in the library than I was in the scrap of paper. The instrument, badly bent and twisted, was behind those projecting books." "Oh!" Valeska studied at it. "No wonder Mary 38 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES couldn't find it ! Then it must have been Mary, after all. But why didn't she throw the screw-driver away ? Perhaps she thought it would be missed, and wanted a chance to have it straightened out." "Perhaps so," said Astro dryly. "But what about the scrap of paper, then?" asked the girl. "Have you made anything of that ?" "A good deal," replied the Master. "For instance, here's the rest of the sheet," and he took from his pocket the portion that he had removed from the ash barrel. "Does that give you a clue ?" She studied a moment. "Now, wait ! Don't tell me, please ! Your rule is, 'Ask yourself what there is about this crime that distinguishes it from others. How is it different from the ordinary run of things? Then seize upon that difference, be it great or small, and proceed logically and analytically in any direction it offers/ But what is different? It's all different, it seems to me." "Well, you work it out, and I'll go down and try to find an express ofHce in which a flat parcel addressed to a Chicago millionaire will have been noticed. You may turn away any people who come for a reading. This is going to bring in more money than I thought, and it will pay to follow it up while it's hot." Valeska met him at the front door when he returned, and said in a low voice, "Mr. Barrister is here." "Certainly," said Astro. "I telephoned him to be here at four o'clock." "Then you are finished ?" "You'll see." THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 39 "I found out that White had left town to-day," she announced. "Aha !" said the Seer cryptically. He went in and bowed gravely to Barrister in the reception-room. Valeska busied herself at her desk and watched under her brows. Astro took his accus- tomed seat on the divan. "Mr. Barrister," he said, after a pause, "I am sorry to say that I have been unable to find either the Folio or the thief." The other immediately rose, shaking his head em- phatically and triumphantly. "I thought as much," he said. "This is what all this charlatanry usually amounts to. You're all alike, you can impose upon credulous women; but when it comes actually to accomplishing anything, you can't deliver the goods. However, I've satisfied my wife, at any rate. I suppose there will be no charge in these circumstances, Mr. Astro?" The Master of Mysteries twirled his thumbs and spoke dreamily. "On the contrary, Mr. Barrister, my services on this case will cost you just one thousand dollars." His client stared at him indignantly. His brow drew down. "What in the world do you mean, sir? One thousand dollars !" "One thousand dollars is my fee. I can give you a blank check if you haven't your book with you." "But you've discovered nothing." "I said that I had not found the book or the thief." "And yet your fee, if you had found either, was to have been only five hundred ! I don't understand what you are driving at, sir !" Astro recrossed his legs and gave his client gaze for 40 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES gaze. He spoke now very deliberately. His languor- ous tone had given place to a crisp hard enunciation. "Mr. Barrister," he said, "what you say is true. You understand me perfectly. If I had told you the name of the thief and the location of the book, I should have charged you only five hundred dollars. My price for not telling is one thousand. Do you understand me now ?" He took up a crystal sphere and began to regard it fixedly. Barrister's face had changed from perplexity to an- ger, and then to a sudden comprehension. He dropped his head and gazed at the carpet, standing for some moments irresolute and dismayed. Finally he walked to the desk, took the blank check that Valeska handed to him, and dipped his pen into the ink. He looked up. "You never expect to find the culprit, I suppose ?" he asked, with a strange expression on his face. "I never expect to," answered the Seer. Barrister signed his name and handed over the check. "You are a most extraordinary young man, sir !" he snarled, and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Valeska stared, her brows knitted. "Wait a min- ute ! I've almost got it ! It was Barrister himself who stole the book his own book " "Which his wife had given him when they were mar- ried ; don't forget that," said Astro. "Yes ; so, of course, he wouldn't want her to know he had been mean enough to dispose of it. She is still in love with him, I could see that, and she's a sentimental i Barrister signed his name and handed over the check. THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 41 old thing, too. So he had to mimic a burglary, did he ?" "And very stupidly he did it, with an ordinary screw-driver which he didn't have sense enough to de- stroy." "But why did he want the book? What did he do with it?" "Made arrangements with Hepson that morning; stole it that afternoon. Gambling debt. You found that out yourself from White, who had been forcing Barrister for the money, and was sore because he wouldn't pay up. Barrister is sadly in need of ready cash; I found that out from his bank. And Hepson offered him three thousand for his Folio." "Then Hepson has the book now ?" "Or it's on its way there. That's the reason he turned our telegraph offer down. He wasn't interested, be- cause Barrister had already sold him his copy." "How did you know that ?" "Let me ask you one question. What was there about this case that was different from most affairs like it?" Valeska pondered. "Why, it seems to me strange that Barrister didn't call in the police at once." "Precisely. If he had, he was afraid he would have trouble, and Hepson might be investigated. It's easy enough now for Barrister to keep his wife from know- ing anything of the sale; and Hepson will be glad enough at getting the book to say nothing about it for a year or two. There was my start. It seemed queer that Barrister, losing so valuable a treasure, shouldn't report it at once and have it traced, and all the dealers notified. His wife's belief in the occult was what got him safely over the necessity of calling in the police. I 42 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES didn't like the way he protested so much that nobody had offered to buy his Folio. It seemed to back up my suspicion." "I rather suspected Mary," commented Valeska, "when I saw the violet stains on her fingers just like the ink on the scrap of paper. By the way, where did you get the rest of that paper, and what does it mean ? It quite led me astray." "Which was precisely what it was intended to do. Our friend Mr. Barrister tried not only to hide his own tracks, but to create false ones in order to befuddle any detective who tackled the job. I noticed the violet writing as we came past the ash barrels. So, I pre- sume, did Barrister when he came home after commit- ting the robbery. 'Aha!' he said to himself, 'here's a chance to fool any detective that comes hunting for clues. I'll give him clues !' So he took the piece, tore off a part, and carefully left it on the floor. I confess that was clever ; for as his finding of it in the ash can was entirely accidental, no one knows where such a trail might have led to. But the trouble is that such a man always goes too far, especially when he has to work in a hurry. Now, there's the case of the boots, for instance." "But I didn't see any boots." "I saw one in the ash barrel, a left shoe. When I looked out the window that was supposed to have been forced, I saw the prints of a right boot; but it had nails in the heel arranged just as its brother in the bar- rel had. Of course Barrister took the shoe out of the barrel and used it to make the footprints of a suppos- ititious burglar." "Why," exclaimed the girl, "it's just as wonderful as THE STOLEN SHAKESPEARE 43 if you had really done it with crystal gazing! But I don't see how you could be sure, after all. There was White, who might have been Hepson's tool." "Yes, I had two lines I might have worked on, White as well as Barrister, but White had been win- ning plenty of money, and is well-off, anyway. He wouldn't go around jimmying windows to get things, either." "Still, I insist you had nothing that absolutely con- nected Barrister with his own misdeeds." "Hadn't I ? If you had gone into about ten branch express offices in the down-town district as I had, you'd have found out. You recall my package? It was just the same size as the Folio. I finally found the office that I was looking for, and said to the clerk, 'I sent a pack- age to Mr. Hepson two days ago, and he telegraphs that it hasn't been received. So I'm sending this. I wish you'd look it up and see what's the matter. It's from Renold M. White.' Well, the clerk looked over his record of carbon duplicate receipts, and said, There was a package sent from a Mr. Barrister to a Mr. Hepson in Chicago ; but none from White.' So I said, 'Never mind,' and left." The two sat in silence for some time. At last the Master of Mysteries spoke : "There is just one thing I don't like about this case of the theft of the First Folio Shakespeare." "What's that?" asked Valeska. "This is the first time I go on record as not having run down my quarry; but it has paid fairly well for two days' work." And he smiled as he took up an an- tique volume of the Kabala. THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR ENTERING the room slowly, grave and distin- guished in his flowing silken robes, Astro did not glance at his visitor till he had seated himself in a picturesque pose upon the divan. Then, taking up the silver mouthpiece of his water-pipe, he gave a long sober look at the stranger. "It's a pity you are unhappily married," he said, gazing languidly at the red and gold ceiling above him. He semed to pay little attention to the thick hairy hand of his client, which lay limp on the velvet cushion. Opposite him the bull-necked, red-faced man sat star- ing in amazement, no longer wearing the contemptu- ous, amused expression with which he had entered the astrological parlors of the slim, romantic-looking, young man in the turban. Like many another unbe- liever who had come to test Astro in that very room, his look had changed gradually from scorn to interest, until now his eyes were fixed on the palmist with eager curiosity and perplexity. "No doubt it's her fault," Astro continued ; "for she is indifferent and selfish. It might be better if you were to let it come to an actual quarrel, and be sepa- rated." He reached for his narghile, and took a long bubbling whiff of perfumed smoke, as if, as far as he 44 THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 45 was concerned, the matter had been weighed and set- tled. There came at this moment the sound of a muffled electric bell. His client still gazed stupidly in front of him, but said nothing. He did not seem to notice the signal. Astro, however, rose and went to a pair of black vel- vet curtains hanging at one side of the wall behind his visitor's back. There was a mirror hung above which reflected the stocky form of the man at the little table, the bulge of a revolver in his hip pocket, and the round head with its short cropped hair. The head did not turn. Astro parted the hangings deftly and peered within. On a level with his eyes was a small square window, lighted from behind. Against the glass a sheet of paper was fastened, and on it was written in a feminine scrawl, "Plain-clothes man. Working on the Macdougal Street dynamite case." Valeska smiled at him from the secret cabinet. Astro picked up a magnifying-glass, dropped the curtains, and returned to his client. Seating himself, he looked carefully at the lines in the detective's palm ; after which he took a small crystal sphere from a draw- er in the table, set it on the cushion, and seemed to lose himself in prolonged contemplation of the mysteries hidden within it. His vis-a-vis fidgeted restlessly. "You are a busy man indeed," commented Astro, half aloud. "Not only are you keeping your eye on the crooks around the Rennick Hotel, and investigating several pool-room layouts, but you come up here in reality to see if my place is, as you would call it, 'on the square'. How on earth you have time for all this, when you are so puzzled about the Macdougal Street busi- 46 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES ness, is more than I can see. You must be a man of extraordinary resource." The officer stared like a child at the dreamy-eyed Oriental before him. "Gosh!" he said almost plain- tively. Then he rose and thrust his big hairy hands into his pockets. "Say, what do you know about that dynamite affair, anyway?" he asked. Astro smiled. "Nothing. I'm too busy to trouble about things that are not any of my business." "But what if it was your business?" continued the policeman eagerly. "What if I made it an object to you?" Astro assumed a dramatic air of omnipotence. "Ah!" answered the Seer. "No doubt I could tell you anything you wished to know." The man drew out a pocketbook. "See here," he said, tapping it, "I ain't rich by any means ; but I'm up against it on this case, and if you can look into them glasses and give me a tip, I'll make it worth your while." Astro laughed. "Oh, it's not quite so simple as that. You must understand, my dear sir, that I can do abso- lutely nothing without coming into direct personal con- tact with the vibrations emanating from the scene or from the individual. I can tell about you, because you happen to be before me ; but I should have to be pres- ent at the place in order to become sensitive to the oc- cult influences that have permeated the vicinity of the crime. Do you understand?" The officer evidently did not understand ; but he was in nowise deterred from making use of this power that had so impressed him. "I'll take you up there," he offered. THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 47 "Very well," said Astro. "I'll help you on this case, Mr. " "McGraw." " Mr.Graw, with tHe distinct understanding, how- ever, that I am to be left to do what I like, undisturbed and unwatched. Utter abstraction, my dear sir, the harmony of the Tatvic Rythm, is in all instances abso- lutely necessary. I see the invisible ; I hear the inaudi- ble; I touch the intangible." The detective stood like a cow gazing on an eighth wonder of the world. "All right," he said, lamely. "When'll you come?" "At three this afternoon. Meet me in front of the place number 950, isn't it? That's right. But first I should like to know what you have learned about the matter." "Well, it's just this way. There's a chap at number 950 named Pietro Gallino. He has a wholesale wine and grocery shop, and does a considerable importing business ; he also acts as a sort of local banker. Two weeks ago he got a letter that was made up of words torn out of a newspaper, telling him to leave a thous- and dollars in ten-dollar bills underneath a certain bench by the arch into Washington Square. He was to put it there the next night, or else his place would be blown up. He went dippy about it, of course, and re- ported it to the police right away. We told him to put up a dummy package and carry out instructions. He did that and the place was watched. Nobody came, of course. The next day there was an explosion in front of his store, and it smashed up the windows and doors good and plenty. Then he got another letter, some- thing like the first one, only he was to put the money in 48 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES a certain fire bucket on the third floor of a building at 231 Vestry Street. Somebody came that time! but, with three exits to the building and us watching every one of them, we couldn't nab our man. The next day there was an explosion on top of Gallino's building, and then came this last letter." He took from his pocketbook a sheet of paper, folded. On it were pasted irregular fragments from the adver- tising pages of a newspaper. It read as follows : "Have a thousand dollars with you, day and night. We will tell you how to pay before the twelfth. If any more tricks, will blow you to pieces sure I" It was signed with the dread insignia of the Black Hand, a skull and cross-bones and a rudely drawn hand. Astro looked at it carelessly, pressed it to his fore- head, fingered it sensitively, and then put it in his pocket with composure. "Very well. I get from this letter, even now, a subtle impression, and when I en- counter these vibrations in the flesh I shall immediately recognize them. The criminal has a violet soul, tend- ing toward purple. Purples are malicious and very dangerous. This aura distresses me." And he fop- pishly sniffed at a bottle of smelling-salts. The effect of this was not lost on McGraw. "I don't know how the mischief you get wise," said the dazed officer; "but it don't matter how you turn the trick, just so you deliver the goods. I'll see you at three then. And be mighty careful of that paper !" Astro nodded impassively as his visitor left. Then he pressed an electric button, and Valeska Wynne, his THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 49 young assistant, entered the room with" a free and easy, graceful, girlish stride. She smiled quickly, and lifted her eyebrows at the departing plain-clothes man. "Easy enough to tip you that time," she remarked, "I passed him on the stairs with a policeman, and caught a few words. Anything in him ?" "No money; but it's a good advertisement, and it g-ets me in with the police, so that I shall be able to rely on them for help from time to time. Did you notice the chalk on his sleeve ?" "Sure ; but I didn't have time to tell you, and I knew you'd get that. Billiard cue, I suppose?" "Hardly not in this Broadway neighborhood; though it's possible. Billiard-cue chalk hereabout is generally green in color. That white stuff probably means a bucket-shop. He's been nosing round illegal race-track, gambling places, I imagine. At least I told him so, and it took. Notice the dab of gilt paint on his vest?" "No," answered the girl. "They're rebronzing the furnishings and decorations in the Rennick lobby to-day. Inasmuch as that is the notorious hotel for crooks of all descriptions, I saw at a glance that he had been there. Did you observe his handkerchief?" "Oh, yes," said she eagerly, glad at last to have caught one point in the train of the master's deduction. "It was a small one a woman's, of course." "And the top button of his coat?" "No." Valeska's face fell. "Sewed on with fine copper wire instead of thread. What do you make of that ?" He surveyed her quiz- zically. 50 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES She puckered her pretty face for a moment, then raised her fair blue eyes interrogatively. "They seem contradictory, don't they? The handkerchief would suggest marriage ; unless it's a souvenir " "No. He used it too strenuously, I'm afraid, for any sentiment to be attached to it; his only emotion seemed to be disgust at its size or lack of size. His wife's, of course. She's alive, and with him, or her handkerchiefs wouldn't be where he'd pick one up in a hurry; probably mixed in with his when the laundry came home." "It might be his sister's," suggested the girl. "Why didn't she sew his buttons on for him, then? Oh, it's simple enough. But your tip was what really helped me most with McGraw that's his name after all. He wants me to help him solve the Macdougal Street mystery." In a few minutes Astro went over the history of the affair, and laid the last threatening letter on the table. Valeska inspected it carefully. "The pieces are all cut from the advertising pages of The Era," she said finally. "Good! Except these two, which, you see, instead of being cut, are torn along the edge. Not much of a clue, but worth remembering." "What do you know about the Black Hand?" Va- leska asked. "As much as any one, and that is nothing. Even Petrosini, the greatest of metropolitan Italian sleuths, said that there was no such thing. Warburton, on Im- migration, has some very interesting chapters concern- ing the bloodthirsty Sicilian and his criminal organiza- tion, all of which have been corroborated in the recent THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 51 Camorra and Mafia trials. But here in America there is really no Black Hand ; although the rather melodra- matic name is made use of from time to time by indi- viduals bent on extortion. It is a great terrorizer. In this instance, the work is clearly that of one person. The affair looks simple. I'll get my vibrations easily enough ; you just see if I don't ! It isn't half so difficult as that interior epicycloid I was at work on last night. Be ready at three o'clock." Until that time Astro the Seer was characteristically picturesque. Curious women listened to his talk about them in delight, men came with ill-disguised scorn and left the studio in admiration, and through it all he gazed into crystals, and intoned cabalistic words. When the last client, however, had disappeared, Astro threw off his turban and robe, yawned prodigiously, and became his real, alert, keen-eyed self. With Va- leska Wynne he walked rapidly down Fifth Avenue, across Washington Square, and along Macdougal Street to number 950, where he found McGraw await- ing him in some impatience. At once the mask fell again over Astro's handsome poetic face ; no summer saunterer seemed ever more idle or indifferent. I "Ah, here you are, sir," said the detective with evi- dent relief as he tipped his hat to Valeska. "And here's the joint." The house still showed signs of the recent outrage. The broken frames of the front windows were boarded up, and several beams held the tottering lumber in place. The sidewalk was not yet repaired, but had been hastily covered with loose planks. Evidently the bomb 52 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES thrower had created a terrific disturbance. Every pane of glass in the building was shattered. As a result of the latest attempt upon Gallino's life, the whole top of the store was a mass of broken timber in front; the back part of the roof seemed not to have been dis- turbed. A small group of silent wide-eyed Italians hung about the place, eying the evidences of destruc- tion in awe. Astro scarcely gave the place a glance ; but, accom- panied by McGraw and Valeska, entered the store and spoke a few commonplaces to the proprietor, who, with hunted face, gazed anxiously at the officer. Valeska's eyes roamed vivaciously about the interior, taking in everything. "Don't you suspect any one?" she asked Gallino at length. "Yassa, ma'am, I do. I say it ees Tony, my ol' clerk. He ees no good, that-a boy. I fire 'im. That ees-a one week ago. I tell-a da cop; he say-a no. Tony, he live across da street right-a now. He blow me up-a for sure. You wait teel I catch-a heem !" McGraw laughed easily. "The old man's nutty about it, that's all. We looked up Antonio's record. He had good alibis, too. Nothing to that theory." Astro seemed to come out of his daze and began to take an interest in the chatter about him. "Well, Mr. McGraw," he announced, as he picked his way daintily among the debris, "I've seen what I care to inspect in this part of the building ; now, if you will kindly leave me to wander about the place as I like, I may get those influences and manifestations that will enable me to use my crystals to good advantage." The bulky officer immediately looked disappointed. THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 53 He had evidently expected the Master of Mysteries to announce the author of the crime at once ; and there- fore it was with an unwilling nod that he withdrew. "I'd like to go up on the roof first," said Astro to the Italian merchant. "It was there, I believe, that the latest explosion occurred." Gallino showed the way up to a trap-door in the rear, and left Valeska and her companion on the ruined roof. "Ah, this is more like business !" he said. "Valeska, see what you can find around here that's interesting." Then he walked directly toward the blank wall of the adjoining building. This rose three stories above Gal- lino's roof, and against it lay a number of pieces of scantling, untouched by the explosion. Over these As- tro bent in search, while Valeska, left to herself, in- spected the hole that the dynamiter had torn in the middle front of the roof. "Here we are !" came his voice enthusiastically a mo- ment later. She ran over toward him in surprise, to find him gazing across at the buildings on the other side of the street. Between his thumb and forefinger he held a tiny object. "I've got it!" he announced, and continued his in- spection of the house across the way. "Got what?" she asked. "The whole secret, as far as that goes. But spe- cifically, I've got what I came up here for. What did you come up for?" "Because you did," she confessed. "And, too, on the chance of finding something." "One doesn't solve mysteries that way, Valeska. There is no use looking for something unless you know 54 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES what that something is. Have you decided how a bomb was exploded on top of this roof in broad daylight, with people watching the house? Until you've got that, you are nowhere." "It might have been thrown from the top of a build- ing up there." "And anybody could have seen it. No. There was only one possible way, besides electric wiring, and here it is." He opened his hand and disclosed a small twisted bullet. "Oh !" cried the girl. "They put the bomb there and then shot at it." "Yes. Shot at it and missed the first time. Now, here we find the place where the first bullet, going wild, hit this piece of scantling. This makes it merely a matter of surveying. If you will stand with the back of your head where the indentation of this bullet is, then sight across the approximate middle of the hole in the roof caused by the explosion, you will probably get some idea of where the bullet came from. What do you see?" "Well, it might have been aimed from any one of those three windows over there, in the building next to the shirt factory. I should say it came from the sec- ond one, where the potted plant is." "One of them, certainly," answered Astro. "But we shall have to investigate them all, if we are to be conscientious about it, and for that purpose I suggest we look up McGraw again." 'f As they went down-stairs, Valeska asked, "When did the first explosion occur ?" "At night." THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 55 "Then the bomb was merely hurled from the win- dow?" "Presumably. Nothing could be easier, and, of course, it could not be definitely seen or traced. But here is McGraw ; so let us take advantage of his office." The detective, though delighted to accompany Astro, and especially his pretty assistant, into the house across the street, belittled the possibilities of finding anything there. "I've been into every room on the block, and I saw nothing. But I ain't got the second sight, o' course. All I can say is, I hope you track 'em." The party went up-stairs into a cheap lodging-house, accompanied by a frightened and voluble landlady, un- til they reached the third floor fronting on the street. McGraw knocked on the first door; but, getting no answer, motioned the landlady to unlock. It was a small room, in great disorder, looking as if the tenant had suddenly taken his departure. The bed was unmade, the small bureau was covered with soiled linen, neckties, cigarette stubs, and the like, and a mis- cellaneous lot of shoes, magazines, newspapers, and rubbish were strewed on the floor. McGraw started to push his way in officiously ; but the slim hand of the Seer detained him. "Kindly wait outside a moment," he commanded. "My assistant and I would prefer to enter alone. The vibrations, you know," he murmured, with a smile. The moment the door was shut behind them, two pairs of eyes ransacked the place, hunting for the things they had already decided to find. Astro's were- the first to come to rest on a pile of crumpled newspapers hastily thrown beneath the unkempt bed. In a flash he had 56 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES seized them and was scanning them one by one. Finally he separated an Era from the rest of the sheets, turned it toward Valeska, and smiled. She saw that one page had been torn out. "The advertising page," he remarked. He drew out the Black Hand letter and compared the torn scraps silently with the journal in his hand, nodded his head in confirmation, then silently opened the door. "Who lives here ?" he asked the woman of the house. "Antonio Soroni." Astro turned to the detective. "Arrest him to-night and bring him to my apartments at eight o'clock." "Did he really do it?" asked McGraw eagerly. Astro turned away without answering. "Kindly don't put any questions to him," interrupted Valeska ; "for he is now getting in touch with the psy- chic influences of the place." "Now for the next room, please," announced the Master of Mysteries, as if suddenly wakening. "Oh, that's vacant," said the landlady with arms akimbo. "A young girl had it until last Friday; but she's left." Valeska turned at once. "When was the last explo- sion, did you say, Mr. McGraw ?" "Thursday." "And when did you search these rooms ?" "Friday, miss. The girl was here when I came. Fine looker, too, she was. A sort of laundress or seam- stress or clerk or something ; out of work, she said." "Well, better look her up too, McGraw," said Astro, "and bring her around with' Antonio." He walked into the empty room, and Valeska fol- lowed him. The plain-clothes man and the proprietress THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 57 awaited patiently until they came out again, some fifteen minutes later. Their faces betrayed nothing whatever concerning their search. "Now, the third door!" Astro's voice was sharp and commanding. The others pricked up their ears in expectation. McGraw knocked; but there was no answer. He knocked again, and the listening party caught the sound of unintelligible cursing, heavy and befuddled. At this the officer took the key in haste, threw open the door, and looked inside, his hand on the butt of his re- volver. One glance, and he had jumped inside, collar- ing the man on the bed. "It's Bull O'Kennery, by all that's holy! Think o' meetin' you this way, Bull! Get up now, an' come along with us ; for I've been huntin' you two weeks an' more! Where've you been spendin' your vacation, anyway ?" The prostrate man rubbed his thick knuckles into his eyes and expostulated brokenly with a maudlin drunken accent. In a jiffy McGraw had dragged him upright and placed him against the wall outside, snapping the bracelets on his wrists as he did so. Then the detective turned to Astro. "This here's Bull, one o' the slickest dips in the burg. There's been a warrant out for his arrest for over two weeks now. He'll be the man we're after, too, most likely. Anyway, he'll have to go up and give an ac- count." Astro surveyed the disheveled prisoner nonchalantly, took up his hand, examined the palm, the lower lid of his eye, and listened to his heart-beats, his head against the man's chest. "Bah !" he exclaimed with a nauseated 58 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES shrug of his shoulders, "he's been drunk for sixty hours. Take him away, McGraw. He makes me quite ill. I'll attend to the rest of this alone." After the detective had led the wretch shuffling down the stairs, the palmist and Valeska entered the room and threw up the blinds. It was a sickening enough abode, smelling vilely of whisky, stale beer, and staler tobacco smoke. A sluggish kerosene lamp still burned weakly on the mantel. Amid the mass of tangled rub- bish a bureau drawer stood half open. Astro strode over to it. With a sudden gesture he took out a box of twenty-two caliber cartridges ; then a woman's pock- etbook, a ten-dollar bill, a piece of old-fashioned paper fractional currency of fifty-cent denomination, and a horn-handled shoe-buttoner. "I think we're getting at it now !" he exclaimed, his eyes alight with discovery. "But, for heaven's sake, which one of them did it? Antonio ? Bull O'Kennery ? Or the girl ? Or all three together?" "Or none of them?" smiled Astro. Suddenly his mood changed as he weighed the bullet thoughtfully in his hand. "It's a very pretty piece of business," he went on. "What was it the old Frenchman said in his wisdom, Cherchez la femme? I'm afraid Mr. Gallino across the street is up against it; unless hum well, we'll see what McGraw gets into his net by nightfall." Valeska never questioned further than the Master wished to answer ; for she knew that it merely dis- turbed the marvelous deductive powers of his brain while they were at work ; then, too, he preferred her, as THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 59 she was, so to speak, still in her student days, to work out her own clues. Later, in case she had erred, he in- dulgently pointed out her mistakes. It was in some such tacit understanding that they now left the Mac- dougal Street tenement and made their way back to Astro's cozy studio. Once there, she could see from the way in which he donned his turban and robe, lighted his water-pipe, and disposed himself on the cushioned divan in his fa- vorite corner, that he had already solved the problem to his own satisfaction. Above the top shelf a row of the ancient Toltec, laughing heads grinned down on him; farther on, brazen implements and slabs of mar- velous jade wrought with hieroglyphics gleamed dully, adding their touch of mystery to the man beneath. On the table were the sheets of paper and the dividers and rule with which he had been plotting an intricate curve, and this work he again took up immediately. Valeska withdrew. After an hour's work, heedless of the passage of dinner-time, he smiled, carefully laid aside his instruments, and turned to a plaster cast hung against the wall. "It is true, then, as I thought, about you, Monsieur Voltaire," he murmured, half aloud. "The line of the upper half of the perimeter of that right ear of yours is a logarithmic spiral, of which the equation is x* = 2ab + y." He threw back his head and yawned. Valeska glided in. "McGraw has come with An- tonio," she whispered, "and has been waiting half an hour; but I wouldn't interrupt you until you had fin- ished your calculations. Shall I let them in now ?" Astro yawned again, luxuriously. "You are too in- dulgent of me, my dear girl, I'm very much afraid. 60 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES The delay may cost Signer Gallino a thousand dollars, possibly his life. Yes, you may show them in." In another moment the officer appeared, leading by the sleeve a very badly frightened Italian. The mo- ment the latter perceived the gorgeously picturesque figure of the palmist he rushed across the room and sank on the floor, clutching Astro by the knees. "I no t'row-a da bomb !" he screamed. "I no t'row-a da bomb ! Sacrament' ! I spika da trut' ! I no t'row-a bomb, signor! Gallino he give-a me da bounce, si! I shake-a-da fist in da face ; bot I no t'row-a da bomb !" At that the tears streamed from his wild eyes. Astro waved his hand impatiently, took up Antonio's hand, and began reading the palm, only to let it drop in a few moments. "This young lady who roomed next to you," he said gently, "you liked her, Antonio?" The accused's eyes beamed. "Ah, si, signor! She the fine-a, nice-a girl. She speak-a to me, nice !" "Very of ten?" "Ah, no, signor ! She lock herself in da room all-a da time. Some eve she come-a in, get-a da match. Da's all. Read-a da pape', maybe, sometime." Astro cast a quick significant look at Valeska under his dark brows. "When did she come in and tear out a page from The Era, Tony ?" Antonio scratched his head, laboring to remember. "Sometime dees-a last-a wik, early. Si. One night she come in, she say, Tony, I like-a get-a da posish. You lemme take-a do pape'. I brink 'er back.' I say 'No, I wanta-da pape' for read-a to-night/ She say, 'All-a right ; I tear off da one piece/ " I no t'row-a da bomb ! " he cried. THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 61 Astro turned to McGraw, "You'd better turn this poor fellow loose, I think. He's innocent enough. I know what I want to know now." "What do you know?" said the detective peevishly. "Seems to me it's time I was put wise to some of this game, ain't it ?" "I'll tell you in ten minutes, if you'll telephone a question to headquarters, or to the proper precinct, and find out if there has been any complaint made of the loss of a pocketbook containing a ten-dollar bill, a fifty- cent piece of the old-fashioned paper currency, and a horn-handled shoe-buttoner. If there has, you'll want your friend Bull O'Kennery for that piece of work, too." McGraw rose wonderingly and went to the tele- phone. Astro called after him, "Tell them that if any one does appear with that complaint, to arrest him imme- diately and disarm him." Valeska waited till the detective had gone into the hall. "It was the girl, then. I see !" she cried. "But how in the world did she ever expect to collect the money without being caught ?" "That's the cleverest part of it," answered tHe Seer meditatively. "You remember that she sent word to him the last time to have a thousand dollars with him night and day, and she'd let him know how to transfer the money ?" "Yes ; but she hasn't let him know, so far." "But she will to-night. You forget that to-morrow is the twelfth, the last day." Valeska, extremely puzzled even yet as to how a 62 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES lone girl was to accomplish her design, sat studying the matter over. Before she could reply, however, McGraw came back with an astonished look on his face. "The girl called at the Mulberry Street Station yes- terday and reported that her pocket had been picked. She described the money and the button-hook all right ; and I guess if you say so it must be one of Bull's jobs. But it's too late to catch her, I'm afraid." "What did she look like?" asked Astro. "Why, that's funny. This Gallino happened to be there, talking to the sergeant about his place bein* blown up, and he recognized her as a girl that used to work in the corner drug store near him. She spoke to him a few minutes, and then left ; and Gallino told the sergeant about it." Astro clapped his hands. "Selah!" he exclaimed. "The ether waves have met at last ! Wait five minutes. I must consult my crystals." The two watched him carefully. Finally he looked up. "We must hurry!" he ex- claimed sharply. "To-night a man will come to see Gallino, and as soon as he's alone will demand the thousand dollars." "A man?" queried Valeska. "I thought it was the girl." "The girl!" said McGraw in bewilderment. "Well, never mind. Whoever it is, we'll get him or her. The house is watched." "Watched!" sneered the Master of Mysteries. "From the outside, I suppose ?" "Certainly," answered McGraw hotly. THE MACDOUGAL STREET AFFAIR 63 "Fools !" answered Astro. "Anybody can enter. You can't keep innocent people out of the house. This man may go in, present a pistol at Gallino's head, get the money, and walk out. Who's to suspect a casual vis- itor?" He paused a moment to don his street coat. "Gallino may even be chloroformed. We've got to get there at once. Hurry !" As they hastened along to the cab-stand, McGraw grunted in ill temper, "But who's the man that's after it, I'd like to know?" He received no answer ; nor was a word spoken all the time that they were being driven to Macdougal and Fourth Streets. When they had alighted there, paid their fare, and looked down the dark sidewalk, no one could be observed. Number 950 showed no sign of life. They started to walk briskly toward Gallino's, when suddenly a person emerged from the Italian's doorway and hastened down the steps. Instantly Astro drew his revolver and shouted! to McGraw, "That's the one ! Get him !" At the exclamation, the figure turned on the bottom step, shrank back in surprise, and becoming entangled in the long coat, fell across the balustrade to the stone sidewalk. Instantly, with a frightful roar, a terrific ex- plosion rent the air. Astro and his companions stag- gered back, and above the crash of falling debris the Master of Mysteries could be heard shouting : "That's what was meant for Gallino if he hadn't paid to-night!" Then the three rushed anxiously forward to where the limp figure lay in a distorted knot on the flagging. The clothing had been torn to shreds, and a pool of 64 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES blood encircled the prostrate form. The body lay face downward; so that the detective had to turn it over. He struck a match and cried in bewilderment : "Why, it's a girl in man's clothes !" Astro turned slowly away. "There will be no more bombs exploded in Macdougal Street for a while," he said. "You'd better telephone to the hospital." THE FANSHAWE GHOST A5 it was nearly time for his first client of the day to arrive, Astro the Palmist ended the little les- son in optical anatomy he had been giving to Valeska. He closed the transparent doors of the huge model of the human eye about which he had been talking, and replaced it on a shelf in his laboratory, where it remained, a large livid ball of glass and porcelain, veined with red. "It's simply wonderful !" Valeska said, staring at it hard. Astro laughed, and passed into the great studio for his morning consultations. "And yet," he remarked, "Helmholtz says, 'Nature seems to have packed this organ with mistakes/ I'll explain that sometime. Most people do think that the body of man is the con- summation of the Maker's skill and wisdom. In point of fact, it is far from being perfect. "Think of the ants and bees," he went on thought- fully. "Think of their strength and adaptability ! By a mere change of diet a neuter can become a perfect female." "Do you mean to say that men's bodies are not so good as some of the animals' bodies ?" Valeska asked. "I mean to say that the human machine is imperfect. It contains much that is unnecessary, much that is not well adapted to the struggle for existence." Astro, now assuming his red silken robe and turban, 65 66 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES in preparation for his astral readings, seated himself cross-legged on the divan, and took up the stem of his narghile. "Wiedersheim," he continued, "has counted one hundred and seven so-called Vestigial organs'; the remains, that is, of similar but more developed organs that fulfilled a useful function in our simian ancestors. Some of them are still able to perform their physiolog- ical functions in a more or less incomplete manner; some survive merely as ancestral relics ; and some are actually harmful to the body. Take, for instance, superfluous hairs; they are no longer capable of pro- tecting the body from cold and often do serious harm. Wisdom-teeth are unnecessary to man; their powers of mastication are feeble, and they often cause tumors and diffused suppuration and dental caries. We all know how unnecessary and how dangerous to health the vermiform appendix is. "Then there are other organs whose powers are almost completely lost. The little tail disappears from the embryo before birth ; but there remain the useless muscles of the ear, the unnecessary thirteenth pair of ribs, the weak and imperfect eleventh and twelfth pairs of ribs, which serve no useful purpose, the muscles of the toes, and so on. Why, the colon, or large intestine, the seat of most diseases of the ali- mentary tract and the nursery of arterial sclerosis, has been pronounced practically useless by MetchnikofT, and in London hospitals the entire colon is often re- moved." Valeska stared. "But what are they all there for ?" she inquired. "I suppose their chief use is to shame our vanity. THE FANSHAWE GHOST 67 They are undoubted proof of our animal origin, our descent from the anthropoid apes." Valeska frowned. "I never like to be reminded of that." "Well, then, of our descent from birds, or reptiles. You have beautiful eyes, my dear ; but you can't con- ceal that little part near the nose which is called the 'semilunar fold'. That is but the remains of the third eyelid you possessed as a bird, the transparent mem- brane that eagles draw over the cornea." The bell rang outside. Astro the Philosopher be- came, on the instant, Astro the Seer, and dropped into his professional poise, calm, inert, picturesque, ori- ental. Valeska retired to another room and began her work of looking carefully over the papers for news of anything that might be of use to the Seer in his conferences. It was her duty to keep in touch with the doings of the day. ' For some time she read without interest, making notes occasionally, and from time to time consulting her card catalogue to look up the condensed biog- raphies of persons prominent,, in society, politics, or finance, adding to the data there collected. She cut clippings, too, and pasted them in a blank book for Astro to look over at his leisure. In the last of the morning papers, her eyes fell on the following para- graph, and she read it with attention: No small amount of gossip has been occasioned during the last week or so in the little village of Vandyke, by the rumors of supernatural visitations at the well-known Fanshawe farm, now the resi- dence of Miss Mildred Fanshawe, the last living representative of a prominent old family in the 68 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES county. While all the servants at the farm deny the sensational reports, and Miss Fanshawe abso- lutely refuses to be interviewed, the stories afloat make the place famous in the vicinity. According to what can be learned, at least three of the serv- ants at the farm have seen the "Fanshawe ghost," purported to be the spirit of Sally Towers, who was a well-known belle of New York in the 1830's. Sally appears, so it is said, in the walled garden side of the old house, usually with a baby in her arms. Occasionally she is seen on the roof of the dwelling. The Society for Psychical Research is said to be interested, and has asked the privilege of investigating the apparition; but Miss Fan- shawe has persistently refused them admittance to the premises, which are now well guarded from intrusion. Of Miss Fanshawe, Valeska could find no informa- tion in her catalogue. But as soon as Astro was free she gave him the clipping, and was not disappointed in his interest. "It's a case I'd like to handle," he said, when he had read the story. "If Miss Fanshawe does not apply to me for a solution of the mystery, I shall certainly vol- unteer my services. Perhaps you had better send her a note, anyway." This Valeska did forthwith, with the result that Miss Fanshawe appeared a few days later at the stu- dio. She confessed herself worried about the stories that had been circulated, because of the unpleasant notoriety she had gained, and the fact that they might depreciate the value of the property, which she wished to sell as soon as possible. The rumors were, she confessed, based on tales which some of her servants had been indiscreet enough to relate. There seemed to THE FANSHAWE GHOST 69 be something at the bottom of the affair, and sEe would be much relieved to have the mystery cleared up. Miss Miildred Fanshawe was an aristocratic but anemic-looking woman of perhaps thirty years. She was a brunette, with dark hair and eyes, with a lean narrow face, full of nervous energy. Her hands were long and slim ; her upper lip was nearly covered with fine hair, almost a mustache, which gave her a dis- tinctly Italian aspect. She talked freely with Astro and Valeska, using gestures like a foreigner. When she had gone, Astro turned to his assistant. "Well," he said, "I'm curious to know just what you noticed about that woman." "There is something strange about her I hardly know what it is," said Valeska. "I noticed, though, for one thing, that she wiggled her ears. I knew a boy once who could do that. I've often tried to; but I can't. Then, her mustache was a great blemish, wasn't it? It's a pity for a woman to have to suffer that. Then, her eyes were queer. What was the mat- ter with them?" Astro smiled. "And I have been lecturing you upon the eye for a fortnight! It was the 'semilunar fold' I spoke to you about a while ago. It was extraordi- narily large." "So it was, now I recall it. That was funny about her being able to pick up a fork with her toes, like Stevenson at Vailima, wasn't it? I always wanted to live in a country where I could go barefooted. We don't half use our feet, do we ?" "Well and the ghost? Have you no theory?" Astro asked. "Already? Of course not! How can we tell any- 70 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES thing till we investigate the premises and see the ap- parition?" "Oh, we'll go down, of course; but it's scarcely necessary, I consider." Valeska's hands fell into her lap with a hopeless gesture. "Oh, dear !" she exclaimed. "I'll never learn anything! How in the world could you learn the secret of the ghost story, just by talking to her?" "And watching her?" he hinted. "But take her talk, even. What did she say that might be signifi- cant?" "Do you mean about that operation she had for ap- pendicitis?" Valeska considered it thoughtfully. "Let's see. She mentioned the fact that she had her vermiform appendix removed, and it proved to be abnormally large. But that doesn't prove anything to me." "Think it over. See if you can't put it with what I have told you, and, more important still, read Metch- nikoff! I recommend to you his Prolongation of Life; but I won't tell you what chapter especially. There you'll find the missing link in the argument. You have already half of my theory, in the doctrine of 'vestigial organs', which you can apply to Miss Fan- shawe's case. The other half I prefer you to work out for yourself. It's the simplest kind of deduction, and needs only corroboration at Fanshawe Farm. Let's see; she asked us to come down next Friday. That gives you three days in which to think it over." He rose and yawned. "I wish you'd buy me some blue paint and a brush," he added. "Now I must put in a little time on that new somnoform experiment. I think I'm getting at it." THE FANSHAWE GHOST 71 But Valeska had no time to read Metchnikoff that week. Astro's absences from the studio were long and often, and Valeska, who had been preparing herself in palmistry, gave readings to all those clients who did not insist on a personal interview with the Master of Mysteries. It need scarcely be said that most such clients were men. Every moment of her time was occupied until Friday afternoon. On that day, at four o'clock, she met Astro at the Grand Central Station, and together they took the train for Vandyke village to keep their appointment with Miss Fanshawe. "How little I know of you, Valeska," Astro said, on the journey down. "Do you realize that it is almost nothing? You applied in answer to my ad- vertisement for an assistant, and you know that it is not my habit to ask personal questions unless it is abso- lutely necessary. But, to me, you are as mysterious as this Fanshawe. ghost we are hunting down. I have always had a queer feeling about you, that I didn't want to know too much about your history; that it was a prettier situation to be ignorant of everything except this very happy present when we are working together." "Oh, let's be sure of that, and enjoy it!" she breathed, turning her eyes away. "I am perfectly happy ! I only hope that we both shall remain so !" If Astro had intended by his remarks to give her an opening for a confession, she did not accept it, and he did not insist. Their talk changed to the business that occupied their immediate attention. Astro carefully reread the newspaper clipping. "The first thing is, of course, to get the accounts 72 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES of the servants, and then to see the ghost for ourselves. Finally, we must lay the specter forever." "I have thought that the phantom might have been impersonated by one of the servants," Valeska sug- gested. "With that hypothesis we should seek a motive," he replied. "I admit that's what has baffled me." "Well, we must follow every clue, that's all." Miss Fanshawe's man met them at the station with an open carriage, and Astro, seating himself beside the driver, immediately began to draw him out on the subject of the ghost. The man was Irish, and willing to talk. He himself, however, had not seen the spirit, though he believed implicitly in its existence. John, the stableman, had seen it, however, and Genevieve, Miss Fanshawe's maid. The third witness, an old woman who had been cook, had left the place, refus- ing to remain in a haunted house. Miss Fanshawe greeted them hospitably and had them shown to their rooms by Genevieve. Before dressing for dinner Astro and Valeska had the story from her. She took them herself into the garden and pointed out the scene of the visitation. A high brick wall screened the place from the street and enclosed it on three sides. The garden was laid out formally, with brick walks along the two axes of the rectangular space, and a circular pool with a foun- tain in the middle. The fourth side was shut off by the brick wall of the house itself, which there rose two stories in height. Along the south wall was planted a thicket of high bushes, interspersed with trees. This wall ran into the side of the house just below Miss THE FANSHAWE GHOST 73 Fanshawe's own chamber, whose window showed some nine feet above. The maid's room was next. The northern wall was flusH with the front of the house, which was decorated with a portico two stories in height. Above that was the sloping roof. "I've seen it walking up and down many a time, from my window over there," said Genevieve. "It always disappears in the bushes over there," and she pointed to the southern wall. "Once I saw it on the very top of the roof, waving its arms. Yes, it almost always carries a baby, and it's always in white, shroud- like. It always scares me stiff ; but I won't leave Miss Fanshawe for it nor anything like it." "It's a queer thing that you and John are the only ones here who have ever seen it," said Valeska, look- ing at her fixedly. "Oh, the cook has seen it, many's the time," said Genevieve. "But the cook left." "Yes, and good reason why, too! It came at Her with a run once, and like to scratch her eyes out." "It's queer that Miss Fanshawe has never seen it." "Ah, and I hope she never will, the poor dear ! It'll be for no good if she does. It comes to warn her, I'm thinking." John the stableman's tale was almost the same. He, too, had seen the ghost on the roof of the house, and running swiftly along the garden walk, and often with the baby. In the year he had been employed at Fan- shawe Farm he had seen it, he thought, at least a dozen times. He appeared to share Genevieve's super- stitious terrors and had never dared to pursue the specter. 74 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES All this, of course, Miss Fanshawe had heard be- fore, and with Astro and Valeska she discussed the probability of her servants possibly having conspired to give the house a bad name. But no motive for that was apparent, and Genevieve's devotion seemed sin- cere. The talk had already begun to wear on her. She showed many signs of nervousness, becoming at times almost hysterical. Seeing this, Astro changed the subject, and nothing more was said of his purpose there. That night he took his place with Valeska at the end of the garden, away from the house, to watch. He had come prepared to spend several days; for the chances were against their seeing anything the first time, though the appearances had, according to John, become much more frequent of late. So, bundled in wraps, the two took their seats on a bench at the end of the path. From here, most of the house windows were screened from them; but a clear vista up the center of the garden was illuminated by a moon be- yond its first quarter. Miss Fanshawe, pleading indis- position, had retired to her room early. j Beyond the seat there was a small door in the wall, opening on a path leading to the stable. Directly in front of where they sat was an old-fashioned sun-dial. It was altogether a romantic spot, one well fitted for a tryst, natural or supernatural. Perhaps Valeska thought it too romantic, for after sitting with Astro for a while she rose and paced impatiently up and down. He did not try to keep her with him. Her nearness seemed dangerous to his concentration of mind, to his watchfulness. THE FANSHAWE GHOST 75 At ten o'clock a sound behind him attracted his at- tention. Valeska was some distance away, and he did not call her, but stole to the small door in the wall and looked out. What he saw made him smile. He returned and, with a low whistle, called his assistant. "We might learn some things from Genevieve and John," he said a little sadly, "even if we don't learn much about the ghost from them." "Have you seen them ?" she exclaimed. "They were bidding each other good night at the stable door." "Then," said Valeska, "it's my opinion that we'll see the ghost within a quarter of an hour. Let's sit down now and watch." They took their places on the bench again, and her hand stole into his. Was it the suggestion she had received from the servants' love-making, or did she be- gin to fear the specter ? "With all his cleverness, Astro could not decide. But suddenly she sprang up, and now there was no doubt of her alarm. "There it is!" she exclaimed in a harsH whisper, pointing toward the shrubbery at the south wall. There it was at last, indeed, a seemingly sheeted form, bearing something that looked like a little child in its arms, stealing down the path! It approached them noiselessly. In the shadow of the trees it showed too indistinct for identification at that distance. Astro rose abruptly and took a step toward the house, when immediately the thing sped rapidly away. Astro broke into a run; but when he came to the house nothing was to be seen. He went back to reassure Valeska, who stood, star- 76 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES ing, trembling with excitement, but without fear. Hardly had he reached her, however, when her voice rang out again. "There! On the roof!" she cried. Astro looked and beheld the figure gliding swiftly along the top of the building. The vision lasted only a moment, then disappeared. He spoke sharply. "Valeska, run up to Miss Fan- shawe's room and awaken her! Tell her I want her to see this !" Valeska ran up the brick walk, passed through a door in the middle of the south wall, and entered the house. The halls had been left lighted, and she found her way easily to Miss Fanshawe's room. Here she knocked on the door, at first softly, then with increas- ing vehemence. Trying the door, she found it locked. No one answered. She flew down-stairs again, and was about to go for Astro, when a sound attracted her attention. Down the hall, toward the back stairs, she saw something or some one pass and disappear. Her thoughts flew to Genevieve, and, with a new desire to awaken Miss Fanshawe, she went up-stairs again and knocked. This time there was a noise inside the chamber, a rattle, a chair being moved, and in a few moments the door was partly opened and Miss Fanshawe looked out. At the same moment Genevieve appeared in the upper hall. For a moment Valeska could not decide what to say. If, as she suspected, Genevieve had been, in some strange way, impersonating the phantom, she dared not tell of it before her. She slipped inside Miss Fanshawe's room, which was not lighted. THE FANSHAWE GHOST 77 "We have seen the ghost, and Astro wished you to come out ; but it is undoubtedly too late now. I wish your door had been unlocked, so I might have awakened you without making so much noise." Miss Fanshawe wrung her hands. Her long black hair streamed over her white night-dress ; the costume and her aspect of extreme disarray made her figure almost grotesque. "It's terrible, terrible!" she moaned. "I don't see why I should be tortured so. I don't want to see it! I couldn't bear it!' 3 She broke into a violent fit of sobbing. Genevieve knocked at the door and entered. "I'll attend to her, miss/' she said to Valeska. "I'm used to her when she has the hysterics, and I can calm her down if you'll only leave us." There seemed nothing better to do, and Valeska went down-stairs and passed into the garden again. Astro strode up to her, a lighted cigar in his mouth. "Well?" Valeska narrated what had happened. "We mustn't be caught that way again. I'll ask her to leave the door unlocked to-morrow night. Well, there's nothing further to do to-night. I propose that we turn in." "But have you found out who or what it is ?" Vales- ka asked, still trembling with the excitement. Astro smiled. "I'll have a trap for the ghost to- morrow, and if she appears you'll see. It's only a question of how to do it delicately and safely. But it's most amusing. I think I was never so enter- tained." "Why, did you see it after I left?" she asked. 78 .THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "I should say I did! It was as good as a circus. But you must go to bed. Good night." As they went out into the garden the next night, Astro showed Valeska a nickeled brass cylinder he had concealed in his inside pocket. "Here's what an automobilist calls an oil gun," he explained. "It works like a large syringe, and is loaded with blue paint. I might also mention that the lightning-rod running up and down the house wall side of those windows is already painted bright blue. If I don't succeed in shooting our extremely lively little friend the spook with this gun, I expect the light- ning-rod to streak her up with blue stripes sufficient for identification." Valeska gazed at the moonlit house in wonder. "The lightning-rod !" she exclaimed. "It isn't possible for any one to climb up there ! Do you mean to say " "Wait, and you'll see some of the prettiest ground and lofty tumbling outside of vaudeville," was his reply. "But it runs up beside Genevieve's window ! It isn't possible for that girl to climb down from there into the garden." "It also runs beside Miss Fanshawe's window. It may be possible for her. I assure you, she's an ath- lete." "But how could any human being get on the roof so quickly?" "If you'll go round there, you'll see. Once you climb the north wall, you can almost reach the first balcony. Up the column to the second is easy enough. THE FANSHAWE GHOST 79 On the other side there's a stout ivy vine that makes a practical ladder to the very top." "But why, why, why?" Valeska almost wailed the words. "Ah, you haven't read Metchnikoff." Then, suddenly he cried, "Look !" and seized her arm. They were standing beside the central pool now, and he pointed to Miss Fanshawe's window, clearly visible from this part of the garden. The moonlight struck the glass as the sash was raised. A form looked out, climbed rapidly across the sill, lowered itself till it hung by the hands, and then dropped lightly to the top of the garden wall. Quick as had been its appear- ance and disappearance, something was visible, tucked under one arm. While they stood fascinated, a white object appeared on the grass of the garden plot, the figure of a woman with hair streaming about her shoulders, apparently carrying a child. She came a few steps toward them, then retreated swiftly and made for the bushes by the north wall. In another in- stant she appeared atop the wall, and swung up to the first balcony of the portico, still bearing her burden. A few minutes more, and she reappeared on the roof. "Quick, now !" cried Astro. "Run up to Miss Fan- shawe's room and go in and wait for her to return. I'll hide in the bushes by the south wall and pop her full of blue paint. If I miss, there's the lightning-rod, her only way to enter the room." "But what shall I say how can I accuse her of it?" Astro stopped suddenly and looked at her. "Why, my dear, I forgot. Is it possible you haven't guessed it yet ? Miss Fanshawe is asleep. It's somnambulism, that's all. But hurry! Make any excuse if she's 80 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES awake ; if she's not, don't awaken her. Let her go to bed herself." Valeska flew into the house and up-stairs. Miss Fanshawe had kept her promise and had left her door unlocked. Valeska entered. The window was still up. There was no one in the bed. One pillow was missing. On the instant Valeska understood the secret of the baby that the specter was supposed to carry. She slipped into the corner and waited. In a few moments a form appeared in the window, blocking out the light. A wriggle and a twist, and it sprang lightly in, and Miss Fanshawe stood revealed in the moon- light, in her night-dress, now streaked and spattered with blue stains. In her arms she still held the pillow, as a mother holds her babe. Her eyes stared straight before her without power of sight. Valeska, more moved by this uncanny vision than if it had been a supernatural visitation, stole silently away and rejoined the Master. "I don't see how it was possible, even though I saw it with my own eyes!" she said, as they sat down on the bench to talk it over before sleeping. "A frail woman like that to climb to the second story up a rod, to the roof even ! I've heard stories of somnam- bulists before, but this is miraculous!" "If you had read Metchnikoff," said Astro, smoking calmly, "you would have found that such a case as this is not rare; and you would have discovered the ex- planation. The fact is that in somnambulism and in hysteria persons often revert atavistically to the char- The white form sped down the garden wall. THE FANSHAWE GHOST 81 acteristics of their simian ancestors. They are often able to jump and run and climb and even chatter like apes while in this abnormal condition. Miss Fan- shawe, as we had already observed, possesses many still active functions of her monkey ancestry, which in most men and women have become atrophied with dis- use. Her appendix was large, like those of the apes. She bore traces of this also in the hair on her lip, in her ability to use her ears, in the development of the muscles of her toes. It was evident to me, at my first glance at her, that she was, if not abnormal, at least peculiar. In her waking state, of course, she is a highly refined and cultured lady. Under the influence of hysteria, or in this strange somnambulistic condi- tion, she merely reverts to type. You know that new- born babies can hang from their hands, like monkeys, but soon lose that power. Miss Fanshawe loses her extraordinary agility in her waking moments, and re- gains it while asleep." "But why the blue paint?" said Valeska. "If you knew the secret of the Fanshawe ghost, why didn't you tell her at first?" "Would you have Relieved it possible?" he asked smiling. Valeska confessed she would not. "Neither would Miss Fanshawe. And b'esides, it would have been necessary to explain the origin of my suspicions. No woman would care to be told that she resembled an ape, and I don't intend to explain Metch- nikoff's theory to her or to point out her vestigial or- gans which are not quite vestigial. No, I'll merely tell her she walks in her sleep, as is proved by the blue paint on her night-dress, and advise her either to lock 82 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES the window when she retires or to have a companion to watch her. I don't think any one will see the ghost again. "I wonder," he added thoughtfully, as they walked toward the house, "if, after all, I hadn't better begin to investigate the ghost of your past, little girl!" He took her hand affectionately. "Well, you won't find any vestigial signs in that, anyway," she answered, gently drawing away her hand. "And," she added, "I'm glad I can't wiggle my ears or pick up things with my toes. I'd rather be a lady even while asleep. I'm quite satisfied with my body, thank you, just as it is." THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY T TNDERNEATH a shaded, swinging, bronze lamp V-J in his favorite corner of the studio, the Master of Mysteries sat with half-closed eyes, seeming to drowse over a huge vellum-bound folio whose leaves bore lines of Arabic characters. But, though his dreamy eyes appeared heavy and dull, his index finger sped with such rapidity from line to line as to reveal that the palmist was eagerly absorbed in the message of those antique parchment pages. Behind him loomed the damasks and embroidered hangings with which the room was adorned; in a corner hung a gilded censer breathing its delicate aromatic perfume ; an astrolabe occupied a small table at one hand, and near it lay a strange assortment of queer instruments picked up by the Seer in his vagabond travels, the dread "spider" of the Inquisition, the Angoise "pear", a set of fearsome thumbscrews, strips of human hide, and other such horrors. "So," he murmured contemplatively, "Ptolemy was a Torquemada himself, in a good many ways. That's interesting ; and it confirms an old theory of mine. To think that many persons don't believe in metempsy- chosis and do believe in the signs of the zodiac!" His thin lips parted in a smile. He had turned to his book again, and had read for 84 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES a few minutes, when his whole attitude changed. He sat upright; his eyes gleamed with interest. Voices were heard outside in the office, where his assistant was still working. He listened intently; then with a quick movement of his right hand touched a button, and the room was flooded with light. It was the first sight of a new client that often told Astro more than an hour's interview. "Wait a moment till I announce you !" Valeska was exclaiming. "The Master can not be interrupted in his work. It is impossible. I could not do it for the President himself !" "I must see him immediately ! I tell you I must see him !" a man's voice replied. "By heaven ! I'll break in by main force!" Another moment, and the black velvet portieres leading to the waiting-room were violently flung aside, and a -flushed and excited young man of about thirty years strode into the apartment. Behind him the face of Valeska Wynne appeared in the doorway, with an alarmed expression. Astro sat, in turban and silken robe, reading, appar- ently unmoved by this interruption. When the young man stopped in the center of the room, the Seer slowly raised his olive-hued face to the visitor, and a smolder- ing glance shot from his dark eyes, in a mute question. The young man took a few steps nearer, and broke out again : "See here! You've got to take this case!" He ex- claimed appealingly. "I am at my wits' ends. I'll go mad if you don't help me; no one else can solve it. You're the only man in New York that can explain this mystery. For God's sake, sir, tell me you'll do THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 85 it !" He dropped in exhaustion into an armchair, look- ing anxiously at the crystal-gazer. The ringers of one hand twitched nervously, while his other fist was clenched. His forehead was lined with vertical wrinkles. Astro, still unperturbed, looked at him gravely, his quick eye darting from point to point of the young man's clothing. Finally he said languidly, with an almost imperceptible foreign accent, "My dear sir, the Turks have a proverb, 'He who is in a hurry is already half mad.' If you were in such haste to see me, you should have taken a cab to come here, instead of a street-car." The young man pulled himself together, sat up, and stared hard at the Seer. Then his face relaxed, as he said, with a tone of great relief, nodding his head, "That's wonderful! It's exactly what I did. Oh, I know you can do it, if you only will ! The police are all stupid, there isn't a man with a brain on the whole force, I believe. You're the man to help me !" Astro made a graceful gesture with his long slender hand. "It is not a question of brains, my dear sir. It is a question of the right comprehension of the forces of the occult, of undeveloped senses and powers. Men need sign-boards to show them the way from town to town. The birds wing their straight paths by in- stinct. It is my fortune to be sensitive to vibrations that most minds do not register. Where you see a body, I see a spirit, a life, an invisible color. All these esoteric laws have been known by the priestcraft of the occult for ages. Nothing is hidden from the Inner Eye." "I don't know how you get it," the young man inter- 86 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES rupted. "I believe that there are many things we don't understand yet, and that some men are developed be- yond their fellows. I've studied mysticism myself, and that's why I came directly to you. I want the mystery of my sweetheart's death cleared up, and the hellish scoundrel that killed her executed. Until that is accomplished, my life will stop, or I'll go insane. The police can prove nothing, even on their own sus- pect. What motive there could have been for such a crime I can't imagine; it seems so unnecessary, so monstrous!" He had worked himself again into a fever of excitement. Astro rose and walked over to his visitor. Placing his thumbs on two muscles in the young man's neck, near the spinal column, he manipulated the flesh for a few moments. His client's hysteria gradually sub- sided, and he became calmer. "Now," said Astro, sinking back into his chair and taking up the amber mouthpiece of his water-pipe, "give me the details of your story from the beginning. You need not mind my assistant; she is quite in my confidence and may be trusted implicitly." Valeska had entered, and sat at a table prepared to take notes of the conversation. Astro's eyes turned indulgently on the pretty blond head as it bent seri- ously over the writing pad. The young man spoke now as if he had the history already clearly mapped out in his mind. He used oc- casional impulsive gestures, displaying an ardent and intense temperament. "My name is Edward Masson. For three months I THE DENTON BOUDOIR. MYSTERY 87* have been engaged to marry Miss Elizabeth Denton, of Hamphurst, Long Island. That is, I was, until three days ago, when we had a quarrel, nothing to speak of, really, you know, but the match was temporarily broken off. It would have come out all right, I'm sure. I intended to make it up with her. I was pre- pared to make any compromise whatever; for I was crazy about her. She was my whole life." He paused and put his hands across his eyes. Valeska looked across to the Master, her own eyes already swimming with tears of sympathy. Astro, however, showed no sign, and puffed tranquilly at his hookah, waiting for Masson to become more calm. In the anteroom a great clock broke the silence with a ringing melodious chime and struck the hour of six in booming notes. Masson looked up with a tense face. "That next day she was murdered !" he said brokenly. "She was found dead in her boudoir on the second floor of her house, just before dinner-time, at about dusk. Both doors were locked ; but the double windows were open. The police say she was strangled. Think of it ! God ! she was beautiful ! How could any one have done it ? It seems impossible, even now that she is dead. There were slight marks on her throat that looked like ringer prints. I didn't see them, there was lace around her neck when I saw her, in her casket. Oh, God!" He rose and paced up and down the room restlessly, his eyes cast down. "What have the police done ?" Astro inquired gently. "They've arrested Miss Denton's maid. She had a key to Elizabeth's room, it seems, and some of the servants thought they heard her talking in the room. 88 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES I think that's the strongest point against her. But I doubt if she did it. It was too brutal. I must run down the real murderer and have it proved beyond the possibility of a doubt. I can't rest till that's done." He turned almost savagely to the quiet figure of the palmist. "Can't you do it? You can see things in crystals ; you know the secret laws of nature ; you lead a life of study and research with the old adepts. Can't you do this for me?" Astro smiled subtly. "My dear Mr. Masson," he said, "I do not ordinarily concern myself with such affairs. Those who wish come to me, and I, of my knowledge of the Laws of Being, can reveal what is hidden. Such agonizing experiences as yours are distracting to the student of the Higher Way." "I'm rich!" Masson broke in. "I'll pay you any- thing you wish! Make your price one thousand, two, anything! Only help me! My God, man! you were a part of the world once. Can't you remember what it means to love a beautiful woman and want to marry her?" "I remember only too well. It was partly on that account that I hesitated. But I'll forget myself and consent to assist you." The young man sank into a chair again, with grati- tude in his poise. "You'll want to go down to Hamp- hurst?" he asked. "Certainly. I must get the vibrations of the scene itself before I seek the murderer. He has left behind him emanations that will rapidly evaporate. I shall go down to-morrow if you will accompany me. To- night I shall go to the Tombs and see Miss Denton's maid. She, too, must be studied by one who is sensi- THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 89 tive to aura. My friend McGraw will be able to get permission for that, no doubt." He shot a glance at Valeska as he mentioned the in- spector's name. She replied with a fluttering smile and was serious again. Young Masson buttoned up his overcoat, and with an embarrassed, hesitating manner, did his best to ex- press his thanks. Astro cut short his stammering sentences, laid his own hand with a friendly gesture on Masson's shoulder, and guided him out of the room. At parting it was agreed that they should meet on the nine-twelve train for Hamphurst. The palmist walked back to the studio, shut off all lights but the one in his favorite corner, and sat down in silence. Valeska waited for him to speak. "Not bad for two days' work," he said finally, smil- ing. "Are you sure you can do it ?" she asked, raising her golden brows. "My dear," he replied, taking up his water-pipe again, "am I not a Mahatma of the Fourth Sphere, and were not the divine laws of cosmic life revealed to me while I was a chela on the heights of the Hima- layas?" Valeska broke into a silvery laugh. "Do you know," she said, "that patter of yours is almost as becoming as that turban and robe. But, to be serious, have you any clue as yet?" Astro did not answer for a moment; then he said meaningly, "The principle by which muscle reading can be accomplished is this : The person that is held moves in a minute circle until he finds the point of least resistance to his motion. He moves, then, in this 90 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES line as long as his holders unconsciously guide him in that direction. The same principle is true of any prob- lem of this sort. Let us wait, until we are guided by something that seems characteristic of this special crime. The street-car business was simple enough to you, I suppose?" Valeska pouted. "Oh, I'm not altogether a fool. Why, he had a Broadway transfer in his hand when he came in here. He was in too much of a hurry to take a cross-town car for the four blocks." The Seer chuckled. "But now we'd better go to work. I'll see the maid first. There's no need of your going. You'd better get back to your work on the zodiac. Look up Napoleon's notes on the subject. His was the biggest intellect the stars ever fooled. It will teach you how to fool lesser ones. But get a good night's rest. There'll be something more to search for at Hamphurst to-morrow. I'll look over the papers and see what is known about this murder. Masson was too excited to tell half." After reading for a half-hour, Astro yawned, shook himself, and changed from the cynical psychologist to a man of keen brisk manner and alert glance. His' green limousine, which was always kept waiting at the door of the studio, took him rapidly down-town. A half-hour later he was looking through the cell door at Marie Dubois, the French maid of the late Miss Denton. She was eager to talk and volubly protested her innocence. Astro let her run on without questions, until she had finally told all she knew of the affair, which was little enough, apparently. She had started up to Miss Denton's room at about half past six to get THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 91 a cashmere shawl which was to be sent to the cleaner's. Half-way up the side stairs she had stopped, hearing voices inside the boudoir. She did not, however, rec- ognize Miss Denton's voice; instead, there was a higher-pitched voice, exclaiming "Great God !" several times. This was followed by laughter ; then came a shrill whistle. She heard something like the fall of a body, then footsteps. All this so alarmed her that she ran up and tried the boudoir door. Finding that locked, she called down ,to the butler, went and got her own key, and asked him to investigate. The voice she had heard seemed like an old woman's. The butler had heard it, and also the chauffeur, who was in the stable across the yard. "And how about the letters from Mr. Masson to Miss Denton, which were found in your room ?" Astro inquired. "Oh, Mees Denton, she give me zem zat I send to her fiance !" the girl protested. "Zat same afternoon she make ze paquet. Mon Dieu! ze police say I steal ze letters! It ees not so! Nevaire have I seen a man so good like Monsieur Masson to me. He ees gentle- man. Why I steal his letters?" She began to weep. "Let me see your hand, Marie." The girl gave him a slender trembling palm. Astro looked at it for a few moments ; then he said, "Marie, did Mr. Masson ever make love to you?" A sudden wave of color flooded the girl's face ; but she cried out excitedly, "Nevaire! Mon Dieu! non, par exemple ! Why should he do zat ? Had he not ze beautiful Mees Denton? Oh, non, Monsieur!" Astro smiled cryptically and walked out. The rest of the evening he spent translating certain obscure 92 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Hebrew texts from the Midrash and comparing them with the published English versions. On the train down to Hamphurst, next day, Masson was morose and talked but little. He was nervous and impatient to get to the house, watching sullenly out of the window all the way. Valeska did her best to be agreeable ; but Astro came out of his reverie only once, to ask : "Why was the date of your marriage postponed, Mr. Masson?" Masson scowled, then sighed and shook his head. "Miss Denton, a month or so ago, was not at all well. The doctors found her heart to be weak. They thought that the excitement of a wedding and its prep- aration would be too much for her, and feared a col- lapse." Astro resumed his abstracted pose. Valeska bent her brows. Masson gazed mournfully out of the win- dow. Alighting at Hamphurst, they took a carriage and were driven to the Denton house, an old-fashioned, two-and-a-half-story, frame building, painted yellow with white trimmings. It was surrounded with beauti- ful wine-glass elms which were scattered over the grounds. A wide lawn stretched in front and on one side, with a gravel driveway to the residence and a stable in the rear. The place had an air of quiet peaceful respectability. It seemed to the last degree improbable as the scene of such a tragedy as had been so recently enacted. The officers had finished their investigations, and THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 93 the funeral had taken place the day before. An aged aunt of Miss Denton's and the four servants now occu- ipied the house. Astro and his assistant were intro- duced to the old lady, then went immediately up to the boudoir where the body had been found. Here, at Astro's request, the exact situation discovered at that time was explained by James, the man-of-all-work, whom Marie had referred to as the butler. He pointed out the position in which he had found the corpse. It lay face downward; the hair was somewhat disarranged. The square, cheerful, blue- and-white boudoir was now filled with sunlight streaming in from the high French windows which led to a small balcony outside. Many of Miss Den- ton's belongings still lay about, a fold of ribbon, a lace collar, a handkerchief on the bureau; and on a small table, a book face down where she had left it, made it seem as if the owner had only just left the room on some trifling errand. The old lady silently handed Astro a photograph of her niece, a beautiful woman of twenty-three, with the frank and winning expression of a young girl. Astro handed it to Valeska, who looked at it in ad- miration and regret. The aunt explained further that her niece Elizabeth was in a low-necked, white mull dress. She had come down for dinner; but, finding that she had forgotten her handkerchief, had gone back up-stairs to get it. She had not hurried, as dinner had not yet been served. Her aunt did not think it strange that Elizabeth did not return for ten or fifteen minutes. Then she had heard Marie scream to James, and she herself had followed him up, and had been there when he opened the door. 94 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES The old lady was too overcome to go further; But James corroborated Masson's previous story. Both doors had been locked and the keys withdrawn. The windows were open. No footprints or traces of any kind had been found outside by the police. James him- self had been in the lower front hall at the time, roll- ing up some rugs, and had heard the sound of voices up-stairs, and had wondered at them. One voice, he thought, sounded much like Marie's. It was about three minutes, he thought, between the time when he heard the voice and the laughter for he had heard that also to the moment when Marie called for him to come up. She had appeared much excited. He was a simple-faced fellow, with an awkward air and a generally shiftless appearance, the ordinary country youth who has had too little energy to better himself in any way. Astro scarcely gave him a glance, but stood gazing at the door in front of him. He made a sign finally, and all but Valeska left the room. She shut the door behind them. Then she followed his eyes about the walls and floor. "I think," said Astro, thoughtfully regarding the window-frame, "that Masson regrets exceedingly hav- ing tried to kiss Marie about four days ago. Poor chap !" , Valeska's eyes narrowed. "Oh!" she said. "That was what broke off the engagement?" "I'm afraid so." "But was Marie in love with him, too?" she asked eagerly. Astro's expression was more animated as he replied, "I love, thou lovest, he loves ; we love, you love, they love. I think, my dear, that in matters of the heart THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 95 you know the symptoms better than I, although you were not taught the philosophy of the Yogis by a Hindu fakir. What do you say, pretty priestess?" "Masson was sincerely in love with Miss Denton. He never cared a snap for Marie." "I believe you. And yet he kissed her or tried to. There was no mistaking that blush. It is a common error to suppose that French girls are a whit less mod- est than their English or American sisters. In point of fact, they are often more so, more ignorant, more innocent. Marie was carefully brought up ; she is still a child. But the Latin races have temperament; they soon learn. Marie is a passionate little thing, quick at loving as at hating, full of revenges and re- grets." "But what has that kiss to do with this murder?" "That's precisely what I'm here to find out. Per- mit me to resume my meditation, that my astral vision may be released." Valeska smiled, and kept silent. It was Astro's way of requesting that he was not to be questioned further until he himself had run down his clue. It was a quarter of an hour before he spoke; then to say in triumph, "Ho! I have found it! I have at least solved half the mystery." He pointed to three parallel scratches on the frieze, above the picture- molding. Valeska shook her head, puzzled. He shrugged his shoulders and went to the window, pointing to a tiny spot on the white frame. "It's blood!" exclaimed Valeska. "It's blood; and yet Miss Denton was strangled, and no blood was shed, none, at least, of hers." 96 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Whose blood, then, was it?" "Kindly get out of the window on the balcony, my dear." She stepped over the low sill, unconsciously placing her left hand on the frame to steady herself. Her fingers touched the paint about two inches below the bloody smutch. "Well, my dear, it certainly isn't your blood, at least," said Astro. "Marie's, then? She is taller than I." "She had no wound on her hand. I examined them both carefully." "And there was none on James'." "Nor the aunt's. If you have looked all you wish to, you might go down to the kitchen and talk to the cook. It was said in the paper that she had a bad temper, and had lately quarreled with Miss Denton. To be sure, all good cooks have bad tempers ; but, as the police didn't see fit to arrest her, she may possibly be the murderer. See what you can do. I shall re- main here for a while. There's much to be done, and I'm in a hurry to earn my thousand dollars." When Valeska had left, Astro resumed his study of the room, going over it inch by inch, looking again at the window, finally turning to the balcony. The care with which he worked showed that the Master of Mysteries was unusually perplexed. After exam- ining the floor and rail of the balcony, he drew a bird glass from his pocket and spent a half-hour gazing at the elm whose branches stretched toward the window. Off the balcony was another window, from the room next to the boudoir. This, too, he examined carefully. Then he smiled slightly, put up the glass, and re- THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 97 entered the room. It was evident that he had found what he had sought. Descending to the lower hall, he gave a quick look at doors and windows, then went out into the yard in the rear to the base of the tree he had spent so much time in investigating. He looked now up, and then down. He gazed up at the two windows of the bal- cony. His eyes were on the great door of the stable when Valeska appeared, her eyes shining. "The cook has a cut on her left forefinger !" she an- nounced breathlessly. "The second girl says that, just before they discovered the crime, the cook was away from the kitchen for about fifteen minutes. The cook herself says that she had gone out back of the stable to get a few strawberries for her own supper." "Did she come back with the berries?" "Yes ; but she might have picked them before." "What shape was the cut on her finger?" "Why, it was a straight cut, of course. She said she did it slicing ham. But you know she might have gone up-stairs and into the guest-room, which has a window *on the same balcony, and " "What about the second girl ?" Astro interrupted. Valeska laughed. "She's a country girl, awfully, awfully in love with James. She's frightened to death for fear that he'll be suspected of the murder." "Did she hear the voices and the laughter?" "No. Anyway, she was with the aunt most of the time, in the dining-room. It was the cook who did it, I'm sure." "And how about the whistle? And why should the cook laugh at such a time ?" Valeska's face fell. "Well," she said finally, "for 98 JHE MASTER OF MYSTERIES that matter why should any murderer laugh? The whistle might have been a signal to some one outside." "Except that, in this case, it wasn't. My dear, the laughter and the whistle are the easiest parts of the mystery. What I want to know is, where is the key to the door? It was in the lock when Miss Denton went up-stairs the second time." "Where, indeed, is it? That would show a good deal." "If you'll come with me, I'll show it to you. But first I think we had better get Mr. Masson. I may need a little help in a few moments. Will you kindly call him? I'll be in the stable." As Valeska left, the palmist strolled slowly over to the stable and looked in the great door. In the center of the floor stood a large brown touring-car. A young man in overalls was polishing the brass work. Astro nodded. "A very fine-looking machine," he offered. "A Lachmore, isn't it?" The chauffeur grunted and kept on with his work:. "I am a friend of Mr. Masson's," Astro went on, "and I should like to look over this car. I am think- ing of getting one myself some day." Still the young man did not answer except by in- articulate grunts. Astro drew nearer. "What's the matter with your finger?" he asked abruptly. The young man looked up, now angrily, as if about to make a discourteous retort. Seeing Masson ap- proaching, however, he replied, "Oh, it got jammed in the machine a day or two ago. What's that to you ?" "I'd like to see it. I can cure it. I am a healer." Astro extended his hand suavely. THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 99 The young man scowled darkly. "Oh, it's not much. No need of bothering you." By this time Masson had entered with Valeska. "Mr. Masson," said the Seer, "this young man in- terests me very much. I have been conscious ever since I arrived at Hamphurst of certain very harsh and painful vibrations. In the boudoir, these grew more intense. I felt something in that room that was neither an odor nor a color, but partook of the nature of both. Now, singularly enough, I find the same in- fluence here, only more active and vibrant. This young man has a peculiar aura. I wonder that you can not perceive it even with one of your five material senses." The young man stared, more and more uncomfort- able at the talk. Finally he dropped his rag, walked round to the back of the car, and took up a heavy wrench. Astro raised his voice slightly. "Mr. Masson," he said, "I can see this fellow's astral body as well as his material frame. Now, I notice on the forefinger of his left hand, in its astral condition, a small V-shaped cut I am very anxious to know whether such a cor- responding wound is to be found on his fleshly hand. Do you think you could induce him to remove that bandage?" Masson, mystified, but evidently comprehending that something important was at stake, raised his voice. "Walters," he said, "kindly oblige me by re- moving that rag from your left hand." Walters looked up surlily. "I can't, Mr. Masson. It would make it bleed again. It bled like anything when I jammed it in the machine." ioo THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "My friend," said Astro genially, "jammed wounds do not bleed to any extent. It is a V-shaped scar then?" "What of it ?" The chauffeur stood poised in a sin- ister attitude. "That's what I want to know, too," cried Masson. "By heaven! do you mean that this fellow here had anything " Astro raised his hand. "One moment," he inter- rupted. "First, I want to ask you, Walters, to show me where the gasoline tank is in this car?" A look of terror swept over the young man's face. He raised the wrench in his hand and rushed at the palmist. Astro avoided him lithely and grappled with him. The man struck out, tore himself free, and dashed for the door. He would have made his escape had not Masson jumped for him. There was another scuffle. Masson, now convinced that he had his sweet- heart's murderer before him, fought like a maniac. Astro, who had been thrown to the ground by the force of the blow he had received, now rose, and the next moment drew out a revolver and covered his prisoner. "Let go, or I shoot you like a dog!" he barked out between his teeth. "Let him go, Masson ! This is not for you. The law will attend to him. The man's evil enough; but not so bad as you think. He's no mur- derer, really." At these words Walters turned to Astro with a gleam of hope in his eye. "Oh, I'm not, sir! Before God, I had no intention of murdering her! I didn't know I had till afterward. I only tried to keep her from screaming, and she dropped like a log. It was THE DENTON BOUDOIR MYSTERY 101 that accursed parrot ! Miss Denton was frightened to death, sir, and so was I, pretty near." Astro spoke sharply. "Valeska, get that halter, and I'll fasten him so he'll be safe till the police can get here." "A parrot," ejaculated Valeska, as she brought the halter. "Ah, I see! That accounts for the strange, high-pitched voice, the laughter, and the whistling 1" "Get up now, and tell your story!" commanded As- tro. "And remember that you speak in the presence of one to whom everything is revealed. At the slightest departure from the truth I shall feel instantly the shift- ing of your spectrum, and a change in the amplitude of your vibrations. In my crystals I saw the scene; but it was dusk, and the glass was cloudy. Tell me exactly what happened, and if it coincides with my vision you shall have my help in your trial." "I'll tell the truth, so help me God!" cried Walters. "Listen ! It was this way. It was only her money I was after. I had planned it for a week back, knowing just when she left the room empty. I got up the side stairs, and out on the balcony, and into the tree where I could watch her. As soon as she finished dressing and put out the light and went down-stairs, I slid on to the balcony and slipped into the room. Well, I had got her purse and emptied it, when all of a sudden the door opened, and in she came; for I hadn't thought to lock it. She gave a little scream at seeing me there in the dusk, and I grabbed her to keep her from mak- ing more noise. Just then Hades seemed to break loose all around me. There was a voice yelling, 'Great God ! Great God !' and then something feathery came scratch- ing and flapping into my face. I put out one hand to 102 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES ward it off, and got a bite that made me drop my hold of the lady. Then as she fell to the floor, there was a laugh that made my blood run cold. It laughed and laughed fit to kill. I couldn't stand it! I didn't care whether I was caught or not then ; I locked the door, climbed out on the tree and got down to the ground. I didn't dare to run away, for fear I'd be suspected ! but after I heard how it came out it was all I could stand to stay here. I didn't know what to do about Marie; but I hoped she'd get off some way, for I knew they never could prove it on her. And that's the truth, so help me God ! Where the parrot came from I have no idea." "It belongs in the next neighbor's house, and has been missing for a week," said Masson. "Now I'll go and telephone to the police." He stopped a moment and looked wistfully at the Seer. "Ah, I knew you could do it," he said. "I wish you could tell me now how ever to be happy again." "There is no such thing as happiness, my friend," said Astro seriously. "There is no joy but calm, the Eastern books say." Masson bowed his head. Then, as he left, he re- marked, "I shall send you a check in the morning. You will see if I am not grateful." "What I don't see is, how you knew the key was in the gasoline tank of the auto?" Valeska asked him, on the way to town. "I am not yet sure that it was, but can you think of any safer place for a chauffeur to hide it?" Astro re- plied with a smile. THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT THE Master of Mysteries entered the great studio smiling, and, without removing his overcoat or silk hat, threw himself on the divan and chuckled. Valeska looked up from her desk with a question in her eyes, though she did not speak. As Astro did not seem inclined to answer, she resumed her work with the finger prints. Each one of these, printed in pale red ink on a small sheet of bristol board, she exam- ined carefully, then with a pencil she traced out the primary figure formed by the capillary lines, starting from the microscopic triangle on the inside of the fin- ger, where the lines, coming from the back, first sep- arated, and then following the curve till it met the corresponding little triangle or "island" on the out- side of the finger. The axes of this diagram were then drawn, and the pattern thus defined was entered on the card index as an "invaded loop", an "arched spiral", or a "whorl", according to Galton's classifica- tion. So absorbing was her work that it took her whole attention, and she did not think again of her employer until he spoke aloud. He had thrown off his overcoat and put on his oriental turban and his red silk robe to be ready for patrons. No visitors had yet appeared to interview the palmist, however, and Astro was lazily puffing -his narghile. 103 104 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Valeska," he said at last, between two long inKala- tions of the water-pipe, "did you ever try to put out a fire in the grate by covering the front with a blower ?" She laid down her pencil and looked up smiling. "Why, no. It only makes the fire burn the hotter, doesn't it?" He nodded his head gravely. "Precisely. And yet that's what Mrs. Lorsson is doing with her daughter Ruth." Valeska waited for something more. "I had an interesting time there to-day," he went on. "There were a dozen or more pretty well-known society women at her tea, and they were all crazy to have me read their palms, of course. That was all stupid enough, until Ruth Lorsson came in. Have you ever seen her?" "Oh, yes," said Valeska. "A pretty girl of about eighteen, with dark eyes and dark hair, isn't she ? She always looks so innocent that I want to pet her." "You needn't worry. She has somebody to pet her, if I'm not mistaken. And as for being timid and in- nocent ; well, you never can tell by the looks ; that is, unless you see what -I saw." He smiled again mys- teriously. "Is she in love then?" Valeska asked. "Without doubt, by her handwriting, which I saw a sample of you should have seen the double curve in the crossing of her t's and by her heart line, too, for that matter; and by Her general appearance and demeanor, most decidedly. But I had better proof than all that." "Why, was he there? I could Have told in an in- stant, I'm sure." THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 105 "No, he wasn't there; but another man was; and, though it was evident that Mrs. Lorsson considers him eligible and is trying to make a match of it, Ruth hates him. Of course you or any bright woman could have seen that as well as I." "Then how did you find out specifically?" "Why, in a surreptitious way, I must admit. You know that Mrs. Lorsson wanted to exploit me as the latest fad, and she insisted that I should come in cos- tume. Very well, I was willing to oblige. Mrs. Lars- son is rich and influential, and I made out my bill ac- cordingly. "Well, I was shown up into Miss Ruth's room to dress. There on her secretary I happened to see her blotter covered with figures. If it had been writing, I shouldn't have read it; but I confess that that list of numbers piqued my curiosity, and I looked at it. It wasn't a sum, or anything like that. It occurred to me at first glance that it was a cipher. I don't know why perhaps because the thing seemed so meaningless. At any rate, it interested me, and I made a copy. Here it is." He pulled out a note-book and showed Valeska the list: 3 36 91 2 101 91 4 36 91 43 98 91 5 36 91 8 341 91 i 81 91 71 96 91 ii 61 91 'What do you make of it ?" io6 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Why, nothing as yet. It's absolutely meaningless." Valeska looked up. "I agree with you so far. But let me tell you the rest of the story. Ruth is, as you know, a very pretty young girl; but she's more than that she's clever. Of course the cleverness of eighteen isn't quite so deep as the cleverness of maturity; but I think she is in- telligent enough to keep that stepmother of hers guess- ing. Of course one of the first things I said was that she was in love. Her stepmother denied it so indig- nantly that I immediately smelled a mouse. Ruth didn't betray herself; but I noticed that the young man who was present immediately began to take no- tice. He is Sherman Fuller, and, I imagine from what I heard, a millionaire in his own right. Decidedly an eligible ! The way Mrs. Lorsson managed him was wonderful. There's no doubt that if she can throw Ruth at his head she'll do it. He seemed to be per- fectly willing ; but Ruth scarcely looked at him. When she did, it was with scorn. It was easy enough to see how the land lay. She was in love with some one else. "Well, I had used my eyes pretty well when I was up in her room, and had noticed several things. Among these were, first, a Bible on her book-shelf, a half-filled box of caramels, a copy of The Star with one page torn out, and so on. I tried what the spiritualistic mediums call a 'fishing test' on her, saying that I thought she was very religious. She smiled rather cynically; but her stepmother thought it was wonder- ful. 'Why, Ruth goes up to her room every night after dinner to read her Bible!' she exclaimed. I next in- formed her that she was fond of sweet things, and THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 107 her stepmother corroborated me by saying that she bought a box of candy every day or two. "The rest was easy, and doesn't matter. But I could see that she was strictly chaperoned. She didn't go out of the room without Mrs. Lorsson's asking her where she was going, and from the conversation I inferred that she went nowhere alone. I was certain it was not only mere conventionality. Mrs. Lorsson watches her. As I was going out, a maid brought some letters in on a salver. One was for Miss Ruth. Mrs. Lorsson opened it calmly, as if it were for herself, glanced it over, and handed it to her stepdaughter. I have no doubt that the letters Miss Ruth writes are inspected as well." "Isn't it awful?" sighed Valeska. "I thought that sort of thing had all gone by nowadays." "Not when you have a stepdaughter, and an eligible young millionaire to marry her to," said Astro. "That woman is a tyrant and a schemer. There's little love lost in that family, I'm sure. But now look at the cipher again." "First, let me think," Valeska said thoughtfully, holding the paper in her hand. "Here's a young girl who is having a young man, whom she doesn't like, forced on her. She is probably in love with another ; but is not allowed to see him or to write to him. Well, I'd manage to communicate with him in some way." "Yes, and you're clever, for eighteen, and you read the Bible every night after dinner." "Oh!" Valeska's eyes grew bright. "Then these figures refer to Bible texts ? But that was the way our grandmothers wrote, interlarding their messages with 108 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Scriptural quotations. I don't really believe Ruth is so religious as that." "Ah, you don't know your Bible then," Astro re- joined, as he went to a bookcase and took down a copy. "Why, it's the most wonderful book in the world in more ways than one! It not only contains the sum of human and divine wisdom, but almost every message that one might wish to send. Why, it's a ready-made lover's codex! It isn't only the Song of Songs that contains beautiful love messages, I assure you. They're scattered all through the book." "Then these figures must refer to the chapters and verses," Valeska said, scrutinizing the numbers. "And the books," Astro added. Valeska still puzzled over the list of figures. "The numbers seem too high for that." "And there's our first clue. Now let us examine the columns in detail. We'd naturally expect the number of the book to come first, the chapter next, and the verse last. The highest number in the first row is sev- enty-one. But there are only sixty-six books in the Bible ; so that can't be the number of any book. Taking the second column, we see that the highest number is three hundred forty-one. But the longest book in the Bible, the book of Psalms, has only one hundred and fifty chapters, so that column can't give the chapter numbers as it is, at least. The third column has only the number ninety-one. That can't be the number of every verse." He waited for Valeska. She frowned prettily as she studied it out. For some time her look was intense, rapt. Then, as if some idea passed from him to her, her smile came radiantly, and she exclaimed : THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 109 "The figures are reversed ! What a sly-boots she is !" Astro smiled also. "Of course I saw that at the first glance. There is a direct corroboration of it plainly evident. In the first place, ninety-one reversed is nineteen, the number in Biblical order of the book of Psalms, which has more personal messages than any other book and second we get the chapter one hundred forty-three, which could come from no other .book, of course. Now let us try and see what we get. I'll begin at the top, the sixty-third Psalm, verses three, four, and five." And he read aloud : " 'Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. " 'Thus will I bless thee while I live : I will lift up my hands in thy name. " 'My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joy- ful lips.' " "It's pretty, isn't it?" he asked. The tears had come into Valeska's eyes. "Oh, it's beautiful !" she exclaimed. "No one could call it sacri- legious, even though she has used the words that ap- ply to the Almighty for her own lover. She's a dear ! It seems wrong to pry into so charming a secret ; but I'm dying to hear the rest of it." Astro put down the cipher. "This is evidently only one side of the correspondence, you must remember. If we are to get it all, we must find his answers. That's a little more difficult." "It seems impossible to me," said Valeska. "You only happened on this. I shouldn't know where to look for his messages." i io THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES He sat down and looked at her seriously. "The only way is to use your imagination and your mem- ory. Put yourself in her place. You can't trust serv- ants or mails. You are watched everywhere except in your own room. Think it out ; concentrate your mind on the problem." Valeska dropped her head on her hand thoughtfully, and spoke as if to herself. "Let's see. I am in my room alone. I read my Bible and pick out appropriate messages. But how do I get them to him?" She looked up, puzzled. "Never mind that now. How does he communicate with you?" "There's a box of candy there, and a newspaper " She paused and then, gazing at him through narrowed eyes, went on. "It must be through the paper ; I can't see any other way possible. No one would suspect that, if the message were concealed. It might be in the ' Personal' column." "That's too easy, and it might be noticed. Besides, The Star has no 'Personals'." "Then It couldn't be in a news item ; for he wouldn't be sure of its being inserted, even if he were a reporter. It must be in an advertisement." He went into the waiting-room, and returned with a copy of The Star. "Correct," he said. "That's the only possible solu- tion. Now the thing to do is to look through this file of The Star and see if we can discover any advertise- ment that seems suspicious. First, what date shall we lookup?" Valeska returned to the paper on which the num- bers were written. "Well," she said, "if it were I, I THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT in should want to have a message as often as possible. If I send him my texts every night, he ought to reply in the morning paper. This paper seems to show four messages. The last one must be yesterday's. That would bring his first advertisement just four days ago Monday, May twenty-fifth." He turned to the file, and they looked over the pages together, her chin on his shoulder, Astro's long fore- finger hovering at one advertisement after another, his suave voice keeping up a running commentary : "We'll omit the displayed ads. He's probably poor, or Ruth's stepmother wouldn't object to him; so couldn't afford that, and besides they would be too conspicuous. All the little ones are classified under heads. Let's see: 'Automobiles/ h'm, all well- known second-hand shops. 'Lawyers/ nothing there. 'Real Estate, Villa Lots/ don't see anything, do you ? 'Furnished Rooms.' 'Unfurnished Flats/ let's go carefully here. What we want is three figures. We'll recognize them by the wording, if they're put in on purpose. I don't see anything- there. H'm, 'For Sale/ go slow now ! 'Fixtures/ 'Bargains/ 'Typewriters.' 'Sacrifice/ well! what do you think of that? Eu- reka!" His finger stopped at a three-line notice, which read : FOR SALE 19 vols. of Sir Roger de Coverley, 63 illustra- tions on wood; $6 and $8 each. G. P. James & Co., Flatiron Bldg. "Now, isn't that crazy enougK to tie suspicious? 'Nineteen' again, too, her favorite number. Who ever heard of Sir Roger de Coverley, except in the papers 112 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES of The Spectator, anyway ? There you are : 19 : 63 6 and 8. Look it up !" Valeska flew to the Bible and turned to the Psalms, and read from the sixty-third chapter : " 'When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. " 'My soul followeth hard after thee : thy right hand upholdeth me.' " "The blessed infants ! Isn't it perfectly lovely? Ruth must have had hard work to answer that ; but the one she sent was nearly as good, wasn't it? Oh, let's find the next one, and get the whole correspondence quick ! It's too exciting !" Astro opened the issue of the twenty-sixth, and scanned the advertisements carefully. It was some time before they found it, and several false clues were followed up. Valeska, thinking she had discovered the secret, would hurriedly take the Bible, only to be re- ferred to some such text in Ezra as, "'The children of Magbish, an hundred fifty and six. "'The children of Kirjath-arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty and three, ' " and would go off into peals of laughter. Some of these false scents led deep into the "Begats" ; some led into the whale's belly. But at last the right one was discovered in the "Sec- ond Hand" column, which read, innocently enough : FOR SALE : 64 good, 1st class, 2d hand tables. Address CHESTER, Star Office. THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 113 And, turning, therefore, to the third book of John, chapter one, verse two, she read aloud: "'Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.' " "Now let's arrange the whole correspondence as far as we have it," Valeska suggested, after the four messages were all deciphered. "It certainly is a charm- ing set of love-letters !" "It may well be, written by the ablest literary men of King James' epoch," said Astro. "You read off the texts, and I'll write them down. It's a relief from solving murder mysteries and dynamite outrages and stolen jewels." Valeska, having the references checked off, read as follows, insisting that Ruth's lover should be called Chester, from the name in the second advertisement. Ruth "'I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. (Ps. 18:1.) "Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore/" (Ps. 16:11.) Chester " 'And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. (2 John, 5.) "'I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah."' (Ps. 143:6.) ii4 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Ruth " 'I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. (Ps. 101:2.) "'My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.'" (Ps. 89:34.) Chester " 'How sweet are thy words unto my taste ! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Ps. 119: 103.) "'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' " (Ps. 73:25.) Ruth " 'Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning ; for in thee do I trust : cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. (Ps. 143:8.) " 'And hide not thy face from thy servant ; for I am in trouble; hear me speedily.' " (Ps. 69-17.) Valeska reread the whole series, and her eyes burned deep. Astro watched her pretty serious face without a word, waiting for her comments. The tears glistened in her eyes as she said finally : "Oh ! can't we help them somehow? Surely you can, if you only will!" Astro recited whimsically to himself: "'They warned him of her, And they warned her of him; And the courtship proceeded To go on with a vim !' " "It's altogether too romantic for us to interfere with. Let them have their clandestine correspondence; it makes the affair interesting. Wait till we read his re- THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 115 ply in to-morrow's Star, Valeska. Perhaps they can manage it themselves." This was all she could get out of the Master of Mys- teries that day; but she knew from his silent contem- plation that he had not stopped thinking the matter over. She herself puzzled her wits as to how Ruth had communicated with her lover, until she had to give it up. She knew that if she waited Astro would solve that mystery, if indeed he had not already found it out. She came into the studio next morning excitedly. "Oh ! isn't it awful ?" were her first words. She held the morning Star out to him, with an anxious look. Astro smiled and pointed to another copy which lay on his great table where his astrological charts were spread out. "It's only a lover's quarrel, I think. He's a little jealous of that Sherman Fuller, I im- agine." "Well, that's enough. I should trunk Chester would be wild!" "Well," said Astro, yawning, "I'm glad he made one jump out of the Psalms, anyway. I was getting tired of that number nineteen. Job is a good place for a jealous man to look. You'd better add his remarks to our list." Valeska, therefore, wrote down the following texts, which she had drawn from the advertisement of that morning's paper: Chester " 'I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried : I hoped in thy word. (Ps. 119 : 147.) "'Thou boldest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I can not speak. (Ps, 77:4.) ii6 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES " 'Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness. (Ps. 18:18.) " 'When I thought to know this, it was too pain- ful for me. ( Ps. 73:16.) " 'Why doth thine heart carry thee away ? and what do thine eyes wink at . . . ? (Job 15:12.) " 'Deliver my soul from the sword ; my darling from the power of the dog.' " (Ps. 22 :20. ) "Surely you'll help them out now, won't you ?" Va- leska pleaded. "We can't let it all be spoiled this way ! Think how hard it is for her to explain !" "Trust her" said Astro, shaking his head. "Only I'd like to know how she does it ; that's all I want. I propose that we take a walk out to Fifty-third Street this evening. You know she goes up-stairs into her room every night after dinner, say from eight till nine o'clock. I think if we walk up and down in front of that block we may find something doing." "Oh, I hope we'll find Chester, anyway !" Valeska exclaimed. They proceeded as he had suggested, that evening, to walk up Fifth Avenue after dinner, reaching Fifty- third Street at a few minutes past eight. Astro pointed out Ruth's window, which was already lighted. Then together they walked slowly up and down on the opposite side of the street, keeping the house well in view. They had not been there for more than ten minutes, when the sash was suddenly thrown up in Ruth Lors- son's room. They could see her form silhouetted against the light. A white something was thrown out, and fell on the sidewalk. Immediately a man emerged THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 117 from the shadow of the adjacent doorway, ran down the steps, picked up the white package, and walked rapidly up the street. "It's Chester !" Valeska exclaimed. "Yes, we must find out where he lives and who he is," was Astro' s reply. "You had better go home, and I'll follow him." The man had walked off so rapidly that she saw it would be useless to attempt to keep up with him, much less overtake him, and she tried to stifle her disap- pointment as Astro, leaving her, walked quickly up the street. As Chester walked, she saw him tear some- thing from the package he carried. Then another white piece dropped. She followed far enough to dis- cover what the fragments were the sides of an empty candy box which Ruth Lorsson had thrown into the street. Her message had indubitably been written on the bottom, since he had thrown all the rest away. "I see now why Miss Ruth is so fond of candy/' Valeska said to herself. "A note thrown from the win- dow would be too dangerous and too hard to find. It's ridiculously simple ! I think I'm growing fond of that girl." Next day Astro appeared at the studio with the in- formation that the young man's name was indeed Chester ; that he was an artist or illustrator for maga- zines ; and that he lived on the south side of Washing- ton Square. "He's getting into a terrible state," said Valeska. "Did you read his advertisement this morning? It was under 'Lawyers' this time." ii8 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "I haven't had time to look over The Star. What is it?" Valeska read from her list the last addition: " Tor thou hast made him most blessed for- ever; thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance. (Ps. 21 : 6.) " 'Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah. .(Ps. 21:2.) "'Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. (Ps. 35:21.) "'I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.'" (Ps. 38:6.) "Poor devil!" Astro grew serious. "I did see a paragraph in Town Gossip this morning about a Fifty- third Street belle who was about to make a brilliant match. It was thinly disguised, and evidently referred to Ruth Lorsson." "He evidently believes she is engaged," said Va- leska ; "but I don't. No girl would give up such a ro- mantic lover." "Now," said Astro, "the question is: How are we going to get hold of her side of the correspondence? I'm getting as interested in this affair as if I were paid for it. The fact that there is a misunderstanding does alter the matter too, and I don't see but that we'll have to straighten it out if we can. I've thought of a way to get hold of to-night's message by a trick. It may work, and it may not. Of course it's rather low of us to interfere with their private post-office ; but we may be able to make that up to them later. Anyway, THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 119 it will make it exciting for them. I'm going to bait a box myself," he went on, "and place it on the sidewalk at a quarter of eight. Chester will arrive and think that for some reason she has already thrown it out, and he'll take it and make off. Then, when she throws her own box out, we'll grab it." The temptation was too great for Valeska's curi- osity, and she gave a hesitating consent, on the agree- ment that it should be tried only once. "But you'll have to put a message on the box, or he'll know there's something wrong," she said. "Turn to Psalms 102. I think that will not compro- mise her too much," Astro said. " 'My heart is smitten, and withered like grass ; so that I forget to eat my bread. (Ps. 102:4.) "'Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.' " (Ps. 102:10.) The ruse succeeded. Shortly after eight o'clock, Chester came walking down the street, spied the box which Astro had placed conspicuously on the sidewalk, examined it quickly, and walked hurriedly away. Fif- teen minutes later, Ruth's box dropped from the win- dow. Astro secured it and took it to a near-by lamp post, looked at the figures, and then consulted a small Bible which he drew from his pocket. "This is too bad," he said to Valeska, who had ac- companied him. "I didn't think she'd be so strong. It won't do for him to miss this message, poor chap ! Here, read it :" 120 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES " 'Deliver me not over unto the the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. (Ps. 27:12.) " 'I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. (Ps. 26:4.) " 'But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity : redeem me, and be merciful unto me.'" (Ps. 26: 11.) "I'll tell you what'll do," said Astro, "we'll send this down to his house by a messenger boy. He won't know what to make of it ; but he won't be able to ask her how it was delivered till it's all over." The message was sent at once ; then, as Astro walked with Valeska to her home, he said : "We can't do this again; it will make too much trouble. You'll have to see if you can't get into his studio some way and find out what messages he is re- ceiving. You can go and offer yourself as a model. That will give you plenty of time to look about, and you may manage to find the bottoms of the boxes every day. If I know the young man in love, he won't de- stroy them." Valeska consented to attempt the adventure, and ac- cordingly set out the next morning after entering on her list the following message deciphered from Ches- ter's advertisement in The Star: "'Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. (Ps. 31 : 18.) " 'For I said in my haste, I am cut off from be- fore thine eyes : nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. (Ps. 31:22.) THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 121 " 'In the day when I cried them answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul. (Ps. 138:3.) " 'So foolish was I, and ignorant : I was as a beast before thee.' " (Ps. 73:22.) Astro worked all day in his studio alone, reading palms and casting horoscopes for his fashionable cli- ents, and during the leisure times between their calls, casting many a glance across to the desk where his pretty blond assistant was wont to look up at him with such animation whenever he spoke. The velvet hang- ings were dull and shadowy, and the high lights on trophies of arms and tinseled costumes on the wall twinkled through the dusk, when the portieres parted, and Valeska, smartly attired, gloved and feathered, appeared. Astro smiled for almost the first time that day. She sank into a deep divan to get her breath. He turned on a light above her head. "He's a perfect dear !" she said as soon as she could speak. "He isn't at all handsome, in fact he's ugly; but he's the most romantic and kind-hearted chap in the world. I'd trust him anywhere. He has red hair, and twinkling blue eyes, and fine teeth, and so young why he made me feel eighty years old ! It was too easy! I was just what he wanted, and I was intelli- gent, and he liked my hands." She extended them gracefully for Astro to admire. He kissed her fin- ger-tips. "It was a funny old place, all full of canvases with their faces to the wall, and dust, and pewter pots, and brushes, and old magazines, and everything". It smelled horribly of tobacco and turpentine; but it was such fun ! I didn't have to do much detective work, either. 122 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Do you know, the child actually had all those candy- box bottoms nailed in a row on the wall over the man- tel-piece! I felt like a thief. There they were, all of them you got the list of, and the one we sent last night, and there was a shabby Bible on his mantel-piece." "How did he treat you?" Valeska laughed. "Well, not in a way to make me conceited. Oh, he's in love, all right. He looked at me exactly as if he were purchasing a horse. I almost expected him to open my mouth and examine my teeth to see how old I was. But he was nice, all the same, and delighted to find a model that had brains and could take and hold a pose. My, if I'm not tired, though ! I was supposed to be playing on a piano the table and looking up mischievously over my shoulder. I ache all over!" "Of course he didn't say anything significant?" "No. But he stopped working every little while and began to think; and I knew what that meant. Then he'd go to the window and look out for a long while, and then come back and draw like mad. Oh, he had all the signs ! Poor boy !" "Does he want you to-morrow?" "Yes, all this week." "Good ! By that time I think we shall have arranged 'some plan to help him. If I bought a picture or two, it might help, perhaps." Valeska posed for Chester the six days, returning each evening to the studio to report to Astro, each time more interested in the love-affair. Each day she wrote down the cipher message printed in The Star, and the text she found in the studio written on Ruth's " He looked at me as if he were purchasing a horse." THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 123 candy box. At the end of the week the courtship be- gan to approach a crisis, as the correspondence showed. Ruth " 'He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that tell eth lies shall not tarry in my sight. (Ps. 101:7.) " 'But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.'" (Ps. 102:27.) Chester " 'I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go : I will guide thee with mine eye.'" (Ps. 32:8.) Ruth " 'And I will delight myself in thy command- ments, which I have loved. (Ps. 119:47.) "'But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong: and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. Ps. 38: 19.) " 'All that hate me whisper together against me : against me do they devise my hurt.' " (Ps. 41 :7.) Chester "'Let not them that are mine enemies wrong- fully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. (Ps. 35:19.) " 'Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, aha/" (Ps. 70:3.) Ruth "'Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength. (Ps. 31 : 4.) " 'Then call thou, and I will answer : or let me speak and answer thou me/ " (Job 13 :22.) i2 4 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Chester "'Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink : but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.' " (2 John:12.) Ruth "'They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul. (Ps. 56: 6.) " 'And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for then I would fly away, and be at rest. (Ps. 55:6.) " 'I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. (Ps. 55:8.) " 'That thy beloved may be delivered ; save with thy right hand, and hear me/" (Ps. 60:5.) Chester "'And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee. 5 " (Num. 10:32.) Ruth " 'Then said I, Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me. (Ps. 40: 7.) "'And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.' " (Ruth 1 :16.) "It is getting serious, isn't it?'* said Valeska, wHen she brought the last message of Ruth's. "Poor Ches- ter is half crazy. He's been working like mad to get some illustrations for The Universal Magazine done; so as to get money enough to get married on, I sup- THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 125 pose. But how in the world they are going to elope, I don't see." "Love laughs at locksmiths," said Astro. "But not at stepmothers. All the same, they're go- ing to do it somehow, and I want to see the fun. It's bound to come off in a day or so now. I'm dying to speak of it to Chester and offer to help him ; but I'm afraid it would spoil his fun. Hadn't we better just play about on the edge of it, and be ready for anything that happens ?" "It all depends on the next message. You go to the studio to-morrow and see if you can't find out about the elopement." "All right," said Valeska. At ten o'clock the next morning Astro received by a messenger a hurriedly penciled note. It read : "Something awful has happened ! Chester broke his leg last night, and was taken to the hospital; but when it was set (the leg), he insisted on being brought home to the studio. He's almost crazy, and has a fever, and I'm sure the elopement was planned for to-night. I'll get it out of him some- how, and you must tell me what to do. Here's the text he got last night: I can't make it out; so please tell me immediately. V." The text indicated was from the fifty-ninth Psalm, verse fourteen: " 'And at evening let them return ; and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.'" As soon as Astro had looked it up, he put on his hat and coat, and jumping into his green limousine drove to Washington Square. 126 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES It was half past eight when Ruth Lorsson raised the shade of her window and threw up the sash. It was raining, and the asphalt pavement shimmered with reflected lights. At the curb opposite her house a taxicab was waiting. She looked at it eagerly. There came a sudden noise like the barking of a dog repeated three times. Ruth smiled, let doton the sash, and drew the shade. Then, stuffing a package wrapped in a towel inside her full blouse, she ran down-stairs. "Ruth, child! what are you doing?" Mrs. Lorsson's voice came petulantly. Ruth hovered a moment by the doorway, to say, in a voice that trembled a little, "Oh, I only want to get the Smiths' address from one of their cards on the hall table." She walked swiftly to the front door, opened it noiselessly, slipped out, and shut it carefully behind her. She had to slam it to make it latch, and the jar frightened her. She fairly flew down the steps now, and ran across the street straight for the cab. The door in its side swung open, and she popped in- side. The cab instantly drove off at a furious pace. There was a dark figure inside. She snuggled up to it deliciously. "Oh, Harry!" she breathed. "At last! Oh, I thought this time never would come!" Then with a little scream she jumped away from him. "Who are you !" she demanded. Her voice rang with terror. "My dear," said Astro, "don't be frightened. Mr. Chester couldn't come. He has had a slight accident ; but not bad enough to prevent his being married to- night. I'm going to have the pleasure of giving you away. I have your bridesmaid all ready at the studio." "Why, how did you know?" she demanded, staring THE LORSSON ELOPEMENT 127 at him. Then, as an electric light suddenly illuminated the interior of the cab, she recognized the fine pic- turesque features of the Master of Mysteries, and gave a little sigh of relief. "Oh, it's Astro!" she exclaimed. "You know everything, don't you? Did you see it in your crystal ball ?" He smiled as he replied, "My dear, I saw it in your pretty eyes the first time I saw you." "But tell me about Harry ! Oh, I am so frightened ! It must be a bad accident to keep him away to-night." He reassured her, and they drove on she, excited, eager with anticipation, fearful of the step she had taken, but more and more confident in Astro's protec- tion. They reached Washington Square, and hurried to the studio. Valeska met them at the door with a smile. For a moment Ruth eyed her suspiciously. "Your bridesmaid," said Astro. Ruth, relieved, but anxious for a sight of her lover, darted by with hardly a glance, and ran to the bed where Harry Chester lay, weak, but impatiently await- ing her. "Oh, Harry!" "Oh, Ruth!" Astro and Valeska walked into the hall. "Well," said Astro, "I hope she's satisfied now. She has lost four millions and three magnificent houses, not to speak of a permanent place in smart society." "For which she'd have to pay all her life," said Valeska. "If you ask me, I'd say she's got a bargain. Come, let's call in the minister ! I'm going to wait and see it out !" THE CALENDON KIDNAP- ING CASE HARDLY had Astro's office hours begun, one morning, when Valeska threw back the black velvet portieres of the great studio, and motioned her visitors to enter. They came in anxiously a dignified but careworn haggard man of fifty and his hysterical sobbing wife. Apparently they expected immediately to meet the Master of Mysteries face to face ; for they looked curiously about the richly decorated apartment with a hesitating air. "You'll have to wait a few moments," said the girl in a friendly voice. "The Master is at present rapt in a psychic trance, and can not be disturbed. Excuse me while I prepare for his awakening. It is dangerous to call him too suddenly ; but I know your business is urgent, and I'll do what I can." With that, she took from a small antique reliquary a handful of green powder and scattered it on a censer. Almost immediately it flared up and sent forth an aro- matic smoke. It flickered eerily as she left them. Once alone, she entered a small chamber off the recep- tion-room, and turned on the studio lights from an electric switch. In the place where she stood now, looking into a large mirror, she could see the visitors, vividly illum- 128 THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 129 inated, as if in a camera obscura. The man sat list- lessly staring straight ahead of him without movement of any kind. The woman gazed, with raised eyebrows and a half-startled expression, from one curious ob- ject to another. The skull in a corner made her trem- ble. Her fingers plucked nervously at her wrap. It was evident that she was fearfully distraught. Astro entered the cabinet and cast his eyes on the glass. His assistant leaned close to him and whis- pered : "A kidnaping case. The Calendons' little boy was stolen a week or so ago, don't you remember? It's really dreadful. The police have been unable to locate the child anywhere, and the parents are half crazy about it. She poured it all out to me while they were waiting for you. I do hope you can do something !" The Seer's eyes were busy in the mirror. "Yes, I know. He's a director in the tobacco trust. I'd have known it, anyway, by that little gold cigar on his watch-charm. A dozen of them were made for souve- nirs when the combine was first organized. He hasn't slept for two or three nights. But what's he doing with The Era? He'd naturally be a reader of The Planet. Oh, I see! The kidnapers, of course, have asked him to communicate with them through the 'Personal' column. So they've begun to work him already. Poor devil!" It was an agonizing 1 story that fell from the lips of Calendon a little later; one which, in all the sensa- tional events of the Seer's career in the solution of mysteries, long- stood out as unique. Used as was 130 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Astro to astonishing recitals, there was a ferocity about this crime that astonished him. Calendon recited the details in a voice as hard and strained as a taut wire. "My five-year-old boy, Harold, has been missing for ten days, having been kidnaped and kept in hiding by the most merciless gang of fiends in New York. I try to restrain myself, sir, in order to tell you the story concisely; but I assure you that it is hard to speak calmly. My child was abducted in Central Park, where he had gone with his nurse. He had strayed a little away from her at the time. I can not think the crime was committed with her connivance. Neverthe- less, she has been closely watched. I have not spared money, I assure you. I at once notified the police, and they have been at work on the case, without results, so far." He paused for a moment, almost overcome. His wife interrupted him with a cry of anguish pitiful to hear. "Oh, James! how can you sit there and tell all that? Why don't you tell him immediately what has happened to-day ? Why don't you show him the terrible thing?" She dropped her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. Valeska, deeply moved her- self, tried in vain to comfort her. Calendon put a trembling hand into his pocket and drew out a package wrapped in paper. Silently he handed it to the palmist. Astro took it and carefully undid the wrapping. Inside was disclosed a small tin box, such as tobacco of the sliced-plug variety usually comes in. This, opened, showed an object in crumpled oiled paper, packed in the box with cotton-wool. Astro, with a grave expression on his face, picked the thing up and "Why don't you show him the terrible thing? THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 131 looked carefully at it. With great caution, then he slowly unfolded the paper. It was a child's toe. For a few minutes not a sound was heard in the studio, save Mrs. Calendon's choking sobs, and the intake of her husband's deep breaths as he endeavored to master his emotion. Astro put aside the gruesome object with its wrappings, and then extended his hand and grasped Calendon's with a strong encouraging pressure. "Mr. Calendon," he said simply, "I am at your serv- ice. I thank God that I have had some success in tracking down worse crimes than this, and what I can do in this matter shall be done without reward. Cheer up, Mr. Calendon ; I can help you ! Madam, pray accept my sympathy; but master yourself, for I must hear the whole story." Calendon moistened his lips, pulled himself together, and looked gratefully at the slender poetic figure be- fore him. "I'll tell you the rest of the story now, and I pray to God that you can help !" He turned to his wife, and after she was calmer he proceeded. "It's devilishly ingenious, sir. What they are hold- ing the boy for is in order to get tips on the market. That's their price. I got from them the third day a typewritten, unsigned letter telling me that if I valued the life of my boy, I should give them inside informa- tion of the stock market. They furnished me with a cipher, an easy one that simply reads backward, and by means of it I communicate with them every morn- ing in the personal column of The Era. I am not a stock gambler, sir, although I have a fair knowledge of current Wall Street probabilities, and I soon ex- hausted what information I had, and it became harder 132 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES and harder to deliver the goods. You know how these things go: a big deal isn't pulled off every day, and, not being on the inside, I had to get down on my knees to beg for news from the men on the Street who were able to help me. A few have interested themselves in my misfortune and assisted me; but they're a cold- blooded set as a rule. But for a week I kept these bloodsuckers posted as well as I could, and I had good luck with my predictions. They must have made thousands; but still they wouldn't give up the boy. Why should they? They have a good thing, and intend to work it for all it's worth. "But yesterday great God ! yesterday I advertised in good faith to buy Continental Zinc. It was selling at 31, and I had figured on a big dividend being de- clared so my advice had it but instead the direct- ors voted to pass it, and the stock fell six points. It rallied later, on the mine reports ; but the rise came too late." He stopped to draw a typewritten slip from his pocket. "Here's what came in the box/' he said brok- enly, and hid his face in his hands. Mrs. Calendon began weeping afresh. Astro took the note and read it : "This is what we'll do every time you fool us. Be sharp!" For some time Astro gazed at the sheet of paper, then rose and put it away with the other relics. "Have you the other letter here?" Calendon took an envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to the palmist. Astro held the envelope to the light, smelled of it, THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 133 looked at the flap for a minute with his lens, then placed it on a side table. At last he rose and walked quietly over to a cupboard, from which he took a large crystal ball. This he placed on a black velvet cushion. He gazed into the sphere long and earnestly. It was his way of gaining time for reflection. The Seer finally drew his long slim hand across his forehead and nodded his head. "There is no one you suspect? No woman?" he asked deliberately. Calendon shook his head in silence. "My nurse girl has been completely prostrated by the shock," Mrs. Calendon volunteered. "We are both sure she is innocent." "There is a woman concerned in this, nevertheless. Now tell me what the police have done. They have tried to trace the buyers of the stocks you tipped off, I presume?" "Certainly. We have tried to find what persons, if any, have profited by all the tips; but have been unsuccessful. I shall have a list, to-night probably, of all the buyers of Continental Zinc, eliminating, of course, the names of those who have bought for in- vestment. The criminals are undoubtedly speculating on a margin, so there's little use looking up the records of the transfer office." "You have your tip for to-morrow all ready for the newspaper ?" "Yes, and this time I'm sure it's safe." "Very well, then, proceed as usual. You have, I suppose, your own detectives working on the case ?" "Yes. Can they do anything for you ?" "I'll telephone you early in the morning," said Astro, rising. "To-night I shall be busy. I shall cast the 134 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES child's horoscope, and find out the best path to pursue. Kindly give me the exact hour of Harold's birth." He wrote it down solemnly, then pressed an elec- tric bell. Valeska appeared in the doorway ; the visit- ors followed her into the waiting-room to the outer door. Before she left, Mrs. Calendon took the girl's hand. "Oh, he's a wonderful man !" she exclaimed. "Some- how I have great faith in him. I'm strengthened already. He seems to know everything. Such eyes !" Her husband shook his head skeptically and went out without a word. Astro, meanwhile, had turned eagerly to the things that had been brought him, the lines of his olive face set and determined. From the inspired mystic to the man of practical analytic mind, the transition had been instantaneous. All pose was now dropped. His inspection was so absorbing that he did not notice Valeska's entrance. She did not speak, therefore, and watched him as he pored over the envelope, then at the oiled-paper wrapping of the horrid relic. Half an hour went by, during which the palmist rose several times to pace up and down the length of the dim studio. Once he took down a book from his shelves and ran hurriedly through its pages, stopping to mark a diagram. Valeska tiptoed across, and looked at the volume. It was Galton's Finger Prints, a classifica- tion of all the known capillary markings of the digital tips. It was an hour before Astro put up his work, much of which time had been spent merely in sitting with half-closed eyes, inert. Then he rose and yawned. "Well, little girl, a bit of supper wouldn't go bad, THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 135 would it?" he said gaily. "Afterward, you may sit at my feet, and I shall tell you of my desire to meet a lady that takes snuff, whose left thumb shows an invaded loop with two eyeleted rods ; also, of my inter- est in a gentleman that rolls his own smokes on a Moule a Cigarettes and gambles in Continental Zinc." Valeska shook her head, puzzled. "You heard what Calendon said, of course?" "Yes, I was in the cabinet all the time. But of course I haven't studied your evidence yet." "Nor shall you this night, by Rameses! A crystal- gazer has to make his living on the curiosity of women. Kindly let me enjoy your curiosity this evening; and, that you may not be a loser, I shall explain to you the fallacies in Doctor Lasker's analysis of the Ruy Lopez opening. Meanwhile, let us try some of that new Assyrian jelly which I sent for so long ago. If you wish to add anything more substantial, I won't object, although I am a vegetarian, a Mahatma, an astrologer, a cabalist, a student of Higher Space, and a thorough believer in the doctrine that an ounce of mystery is worth a pound of commonplace. Selah. I have spoken." During the meal, no one would have supposed by his animation that the occult Seer was confronted by the most difficult problem his profession had ever set before him. He joked like a young boy. His pretty assistant was kept in rippling peals of laughter. After dinner he produced a chess-board with ivory men, and the girl puzzled with him over innumerable variations of his favorite opening. They followed this by some of the regular chess problems, ending with several of his own. The last, finally, being too difficult, he left 136 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES unfinished, sent Valeska home in his motor-car, and himself went to bed. The next morning Astro looked, the first thing, at The Era personals. Calendon's advertisement read as follows: ERUS : '97 Otog Lliwcirt celen atil opom S. O. C. "I think," he said thoughtfully, "that it will hardly be dishonorable for me to plunge in Cosmopolitan Electric, so long as I'm not going to let Mr. Calendon pay me for this affair. Let's see. Sold yesterday at 75. If I can get it at five points margin, an investment of one thousand dollars will bring me in about eight hundred. I'll be able to get that Coptic manuscript I have been wanting so long. Now for Mr. Calendon !" He took his telephone, and was soon in communica- tion with his client. "What have you found out?" he asked. "Twelve persons bought Continental Zinc," was the answer. "Of these, seven were legitimate investors. I have the names of the other five." "Very good. Send your chief of detectives up to me in a hurry. There are some investigations they can make while I'm at work on a more important aspect of the case." "Have you found out anything?" came the anxious inquiry. "I am on the track. Have courage, and follow in- structions. Tell Mrs. Calendon that she will not be disappointed in my work." After Astro's routine work that day, Valeska came THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 137 into the studio, unable any longer to control her curi- osity. Astro drew out the evidence in the case and spread it before her. "All life is made up of trivial actions," he began. "Every one of them leaves its little trace. Whether you are tracking a bear by its footprints through the forest, or a criminal through his nefarious deeds, it is the same thing. Both leave their spoor behind. Now examine this letter and envelope care- fully." Valeska took the magnifying-glass and scrutinized both ; but was forced to acknowledge her defeat. Astro took the envelope from her and tilted it to the light. "Do you see a slight mark there ?" he asked. "It is the print of a thumb. It is not generally known that a finger pressed on paper will leave an invisible oily impression, especially when the hand has recently been passed through the hair. So it will on glass or any polished surface. Let us develop this print. The ink will cling to the paper except where these oily lines have been in contact with it. An ordinary thumb print would show the lines of the ridges ; this will show those of the channels between the ridges." Dipping a large brush in ink, he swept it lightly over the paper. The ink flowed away from a patch where a little system of concentric lines appeared. "Lo ! the invaded loop !" he announced. "It is a woman's thumb. I saw it yesterday, and copied its .fundamental diagram and its core. Now look at the mucilage on the flap. Do you see those tiny grains? Snuff, as I proved by my microscope. The postage- stamp is awry, and half off, and also shows tiny traces of snuff. The woman was in a hurry. The corners 138 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES of her mouth were stained with the result of her filthy practise. Now for the paper surrounding the toe. Let me smooth it out. Do you see the foldings and in- dentations that were there before it was used for this purpose? The marks are unmistakable, and by their geometric extension, to any one who has studied ste- reotomy and the development of surfaces, it shows unmistakably what that object was. See, the parallel lines, a twisted rumpled area, and here the traces of the milling of a small wheel. A small cigarette machine, such as one buys on the Rue de la Paix, in Paris. This is a long shot, to be sure, but sometimes it is the long- shot that brings down the eagle. If I hit the mark this time, I shall never be afraid of making a risky guess again. We shall see." He was interrupted by the bell. Valeska left him, to introduce a neat and dapper young man, who en- tered, with a self-satisfied smile, with the report from the detective offices of Nally & Co. The five purchasers of Continental Zinc bought from the curb market had been traced with some difficulty. A man had been assigned to each buyer, and these had followed the instructions given Nally that morning. Abraham Kraser, retired Jewish merchant ; the pur- chaser of twenty shares ; smoked thick black cigars. H. V. Linwood, a young club-man and society favor- ite; insisted on a special brand of Russian cigarettes, costing four dollars a hundred. William Bartlett Smith, a Westerner staying at the Waldorf-Astoria; smoked a French brier pipe with granulated tobacco. Lambert F. Owens, a race-track bookie, living in South Orange, New Jersey; could not be traced, but THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 139 information in regard to him was momentarily ex- pected. "The fifth man, Paul Stacey, I saw myself," said the detective. "I acted as a newspaper reporter. He's fairly well-known on the Street; but yet I could find out little about him. Nobody knew much; but what they did let out was not very favorable. But I talked to him, and he smokes incessantly. Rolls his own cigar- ettes with a little nickel-plated machine. Keeps Turk- ish tobacco loose in his right-hand coat pocket, the in- strument in his left. While I was near him he threw away a stub, and I brought it to show you. Here it is." "Very good," said Astro, squinting at the cigarette butt. "You needn't bother about Owens. Now I want you to shadow this man Stacey wherever he goes. Use as many men for relays as you think necessary; but don't let him give you the slip, as you value your reputation. You understand the importance of this, and how fast we must work if the boy is to be saved." As the young man left, Astro picked up the evening paper and turned to the reports of the stock market. His eyes ran down the column of figures swiftly, until he came to the line : 2000 Cosmopolitan Electric 75 7 7 2 ~3 "Rameses the Great!" he ejaculated. "That will teach me a lesson not to take advantage of my inside information. My margin's wiped out already. Pity I didn't stay with my good intentions ! And I an As- trologer of the Fourth Circle! I hope nobody will find that out. Valeska, whatever you do, don't gam- ble." For a moment he stood contemplating the sheet 140 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES before him, and then he turned to her with a strange expression. "Mercy!" he cried, "I forgot. Calendon's tip has gone wrong again! What will happen next? It's horrible !" He was interrupted by a long ring at the electric bell, and, when Valeska answered it, Calendon plunged into the room, holding a package in one hand. The muscles of his hand were twitching in a frenzy of agony. "It's come again, oh God !" he cried. "My poor boy ! What in heaven's name can we do ?" He went up to the palmist fiercely. "See here ! you promised me your help ! You even gave me encouragement ! See what has happened already ! How long must this thing go on?" "Have you opened the package?" Astro asked quietly. Calendon shuddered. "No. I couldn't!" "Leave it with me, then. You must wait, Mr. Calendon. I am hard at work. I am certain to suc- ceed. Already I have the man ; but it is necessary to prove it. One can't use a crystal vision as evidence in a court of law, you know." "Who is the scoundrel?" Calendon demanded. "By heaven! I'll tear him limb from limb! I'll kill him! I'll" Astro put a restraining hand on the director's arm. "Calm yourself, Mr. Calendon," he said soothingly. "It is not by such means that we'll get the boy. In your present frame of mind I dare not trust you with the man's name. If you make a move now, you may jeopardize your boy's life. He must on no account THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 141 know that he is suspected. No, play tfie game, Mr. Calendon, according to the rules the kidnapers have prescribed, and I'll guarantee that soon they'll be play- ing it according to your own ideas of justice. Get your tip and advertise as usual. You will no doubt have better luck to-morrow." "To-morrow," said Calendon sadly, "I'm going to throw all my holdings in the Fountainet Company into the market and bear the stock long enough for these devils to get their shameful profits. I can't bear to receive another package. It will mean ruin for me ; but I'll not care, if the boy is safe." It was fortunate for Astro that at that time he was also interested in the astonishing burglaries at Glebe House; for it filled in a tedious forty-eight hours of waiting with considerable excitement. Valeska could see that the Master was profoundly interested in the fate of the young boy, and that it had enlisted all his deepest sympathies. What little leisure they had was occupied with a set of chess problems which Astro was working out for relaxation. It was a great relief, therefore, when the young de- tective from Nally's put in his appearance two days later, and made his report. "We've been hot on Stacey's trail ever since I left you ; but with nothing doing of any importance what- ever until late yesterday afternoon. Then he took a train to Antwerp, New Jersey. He was met at the station by a carryall containing two women. He rode about for an hour with them, not stopping anywhere at all, and was driven back to the station, and took the 142 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES six-twelve back to New York, and went direct to his rooms at the Beau Rivage apartments." "He saw no one else? Not even a man in black, with a black tie?" "Absolutely no one." "And who are the women ?" "One is a Mrs. Elizabeth Cutter, widow, lives in a small house on the outskirts of the village; the other, a Miss Easting, lives a mile away. Both live alone." "Did you get into either house?" "I tried to, but couldn't make it. They seemed to be very suspicious of strangers. Miss Easting turned the dog on me." "Did you notice that either of these women took snuff?" "One of them looked it. She was sallow, and seemed to have smears of brown in the corners of her mouth." "Which one was it?" "Mrs. Cutter." "Very good. That is all. Thank you for what you've done. Good day." In a flash Astro had sprung to a messenger call on the wall and pressed down the handle. Then he scribbled a message on a telegraph blank and handed it to Valeska. It read as follows : "Come immediately to the Beau Rivage. Im- portant. P. S." "Give that to the boy when he comes. Where's my revolver? Good! Telephone immediately to Calen- don to take the next train for Antwerp, and meet me at the station. I don't want to miss it." He threw THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 143 himself into a heavy overcoat, slipped the revolver into a pocket, jammed on his hat, and was off before Va- leska could question. She waited in the studio, however, so absorbed had she become in the mystery, so much she feared that, when Astro did return, it would be with some dread- ful news. It was late in the evening when a telegraph boy ar- rived with a message for her. Eagerly she tore it open. It read : "Problem 294 : White knight to king's fourth ; black rook to queen's bishop's third: white king's fook's pawn to seventh, check; black queen's bishop to king's knight's third, mate. Please file. A." Valeska was never more exasperated in her life. Only the solution to a knotty chess problem ! When Calendon alighted on the platform at Ant- werp, at eight o'clock that evening, he was met in the shade of the station by Astro and a burly local con- stable. "Plenty of time and a clear field, I think," said Astro, his eyes dancing with the anticipation of peril imminent ; "and unless I'm very much mistaken in my understanding, Mr. Calendon, I'll have some pleasant news for you before long." "I hope to heaven you will !" said the old man. "I can't stand this much longer. I've sent Mrs. Calen- don to the hospital. Her nerves have quite given away under the strain. I only hope that if we get the boy 144 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES we'll find the dastard who stole him as well 1" His look was grim. "I am afraid you won't get that opportunity, how- ever/' said the mystic, drawing out his watch and pausing to inspect it under a gas lamp. "Mr. Stacey was born under an evil planet and in an evil House of the Heavens. At the present moment he is under ar- rest in the Beau Rivage apartments. One of his ac- complices has just left here for New York, where she will be met by the police. Another will soon be taken. I have been waiting for one more of the gang who is engaged in a shady business hereabouts. We need only him to solve the last shreds of mystery in this affair. I've already seen him in my crystals, dressed in black. It remains to find him on the material plane." They walked rapidly through the outskirts of the vil- lage, past a stretch of open country. Calendon, nervously excited, spoke only once, to say, "There must have been some change of affairs, Astro ; for so far as I can find the gang didn't speculate to-day in the stocks I tipped off in The Era. I had a circle of my friends attempting to influence the mar- ket ; but it got away from them altogether. We simply couldn't sell enough to make any effect. The Foun- tainet Company common stock jumped seven points, when I sold out, and I'm about fifty thousand ahead of the game. If my son is restored to me, I'll have good cause to be happy to-night." He relapsed into silence. They were now approaching a lonely house, back from the road, and in utter darkness. Astro strode up to the front door and knocked. There was no response. The constable unlocked the door with a skeleton key, and all three men entered. A lighted kerosene lamp THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 145 was found in the kitchen. Hardly had it been brought into the front room when Calendon stooped and picked up a child's shirt. "It's my son's, I'm sure!" he exclaimed in excite- ment. "Harold ! Harold !" he cried aloud, and began a hasty search through the rooms. He was followed by Astro and the constable; but, after a thorough in- spection, no living thing was found except a canary, which, awakened by the disturbance, warbled shrilly in the sitting-room. The constable threw open the cellar door, and taking the lamp, stumbled down the narrow steps. In another moment there came a stifled exclamation from below. Calendon dashed down in terror. Suddenly, up-stairs, where Astro had momentarily remained, there was heard the sound of footsteps. Then a gruff voice broke out : "I've got you fellers now ! I've tracked you for five days, and now, by hickey, I'll make you pay for it! You'll never snatch another body, curse you !" There was a shuffling of feet, and Astro's voice rang steadily: "Throw up your hands and drop that gun! You're a pretty character to call names ! I think you'll show up well when you're investigated! Constable Jenkins, come up here!" He kicked loudly on the floor. "By Jove ! It's the coroner !" said the constable, ap- pearing in the doorway. "Is there a body here ?" the coroner inquired. "Yes why?" Now Calendon appeared, most puz- zled and alarmed of all. "It's all right, Mr. Calendon, we're on their trail now!" said Astro, 146 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Calendon groaned. "Your boy is safe and unmutilated. I have sus- pected this a long time, but I didn't dare let you hope. Now, Coroner, tell your story." "Why," he began, turning shamefacedly to the con- stable, "it's this way, Jim. I was comin' along the road last Friday with my outfit an' three of them poor- house folks' bodies, y'know, an' blamed if the hind axle didn't break short off about a mile up back o' here. I had to walk clean back to Joe Miller's house for a scantlin' to prop up the axle with, an' I was gone about three-quarters of an hour. When I come back I see one of the coffins was gone, the little one, a boy it was. An' I see the axle had been sawed half through with a hack saw. Somebody had laid for me just to steal that " "And will you please explain," said Astro suavely, "why you were burying these bodies, for which you are paid by the township, at night ?" The coroner's face fell. "Oh, I was too busy day times," he said lamely. "I think it had best be looked into, Constable. I can see where our friend the coroner makes a very pretty little income from the medical students, and does the town out of a few burials occasionally. But we must go on, Mr. Calendon. I had hoped that the boy was here. We must hurry to the other house. It's a mile away. We'll take your rig, Coroner, while you attend to the remains in the cellar." The three men hurried outdoors, and the constable drove at breakneck pace to Miss Easting's house. Ar- rived there, they knocked loudly, and, there being no immediate answer, the constable entered. THE CALENDON KIDNAPING CASE 147 Calendon followed close behind. "Harold! Har- old r he called loudly. There was no reply; but a door slammed up-stairs, and a pattering of feet was heard. Calendon fairly floundered up and threw open the door. There was still no one in sight ; but a tumbled bed showed where some one had lain. A boy's clothes were scattered about the room, a few playthings were on the floor. Astro, who had followed on the father's heels, made directly for a closed door and wrenched it open. There sat a little boy in his red flannel nightgown, caressing a large glass jar of jam. His round chubby cheeks were stained with strawberry. Then, before his father could reach for him in ex- ultation, the child exclaimed joyfully, "I don't care. I liked it, and I tooked it, and I eated it, and I don't care! I don't!" And, after the frightful strain that had been on the three men who gazed down at the boy, they all broke into a hearty laugh. It was Harold Calendon, and he was perfectly happy. But there were several others there who were happy, too. MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET , dear, she's come to see you again!" said Valeska, making a very pretty picture as she stood in the doorway, framed by the black velvet por- tieres. Astro the Seer followed his first indulgent look by a second questioning, curious glance. "Who is it?" She put her head on one side and looked at him coquettishly. "A lady," she said, tossing her head archly, "whom, among all your fashionable clients, I believe you consider the most charming, most de- licious, the prettiest, the sweetest, the most " Astro laughed and nodded. "Miss Dalrymple?" "The same. She was here only last week. It is very suspicious ! Beware !" She shook a saucy finger at him and disappeared. The young woman who next entered assuredly justi- fied Valeska's adjectives. Indeed, many more might have been applied to her, though the smile that ap- peared on Astro's own handsome face best testified to her witchery. She was scarcely twenty years old, and of that dark, winning, dimpled, innocent type that few know how to resist. To this, there was an appealing look that flattered men's vanity. Were her brown eyes or her delectable smiling mouth the more lovely to look upon? Astro himself could not tell. Was it her easy 148 MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 149 well-bred grace or her ingenuous, girlish candor that most delighted him ? He remembered her dainty hands, perhaps the most exquisite he had ever seen. Now they were hidden in her sable muff. Her little rosy face shone like a flower under her picturesque veiled hat ; her figure, slim and charmingly curved, was only partly modified by the smart lines of her black cloth suit. She looked at him with big eyes and said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Astro. I hope you haven't forgotten me." "Scarcely," was his reply. His tone was flattering. She smiled with innocent roguery, her eyes explor- ing the curious decorations of the great studio. She sniffed daintily at the pleasant smell of myrrh that filled the air as she took the seat he offered her. "I have come for help," she said. "I'm awfully puz- zled about something, and you told me such wonder- ful things last time I came, that I thought I'd ask you." She showed a line of snow-white little teeth. The Master rested his head negligently on one slender hand, and nodded gravely. "It's about a locket," she continued. "Ah! You have lost one?" "No, not at all. I have found one !" AvStro raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you're partly right, too ; for it was lost a long time ago, and I have just got it back in a rather re- markable way. You see, it used to belong to my mother. She died last year. I returned only in time to see her for two hours before the end." "When did you see this locket last?" "Long before mother died. It disappeared myste- 150 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES riously when I was abroad. Only yesterday it was re- turned to me by mail, addressed to me at my house in Yonkers, in a handwriting that I can't recognize." "Well, I don't see what you are troubled about, then, if you have got it back." Miss Dalrymple looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, her cheek resting on her white-gloved hand, as if not quite sure how to express what she meant. Finally she said impulsively, "Well, it's something so vague and silly it seems absurd to speak to you about it. But Fanny and I have been talking it over and wondering where it came from, and everything, and we both have a sort of queer feeling that it has something to do, perhaps, with a certain letter my mother once had." "Wait a moment. Who is Fanny?" "Oh, she's my maid and she's a treasure. Indeed, she is more like a friend to me than a maid." "How long have you had her ?" "Oh, ever since mother died." The Seer frowned slightly. "Go on, about the let- ter." "You've heard about my father's will, and the law- suit, haven't you? The papers haye had a lot about it." "Oh, yes, the Dalrymple will case. Let's see your father was divorced from your mother, wasn't he?" "Yes; but he wasn't at all happy with the woman he married afterward she's a vixen and he always regretted that he had left my mother. This Mrs. Dal- rymple is contesting the will that father made in favor of my mother. She isn't satisfied with her widow's third." MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 151 "And, by that will, you are the legal heir to the rest of the estate?" "Of course. But the other side has claimed that it was a forgery, and, as he left all his property to his divorced wife, they have a fair case, unless we can prove that the will was genuine. Unfortunately, though the will is in our possession, having been given to mother, both the witnesses to it are dead." "I see," said Astro, "and the letter you mentioned ?" "Was from my father to my mother, telling her that he had left her all his property. You see how im- portant it would be to our case ; but I haven't been able to find it anywhere." "Yes, but how does the locket come into it?" "That's what I don't know myself. That's why I came to you," Miss Dalrymple exclaimed eagerly. "I can't describe why, but I do feel that the locket has something to do with it ; for my mother was delirious just before she died, and talked about the letter and the locket. She kept saying that she had been robbed or perhaps she only feared it. Then the locket was restored so providentially, just in time; for the case is to come to court next week. Then I remember that before I went away mother was very careful of it, and kept it locked up." "Let me see it," said the Master of Mysteries. She unbuttoned her coat and took it from a gold chain about her neck, a small oval gold locket such as was commonly worn in the sixties. The cover, being opened, disclosed a small photograph of a beautiful woman in an old-fashioned round bonnet with roses framing the calm serious face. Astro inspected it admiringly. 152 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "That's my mother," said Miss Dalrymple, looking over his shoulder. "It is hardly necessary to explain that. I see now where you get your beauty." With a deft movement of his thumb nail, Astro opened the inner rim and re- moved the photograph. The back of the paper was covered with Greek letters written microscopically in ink, as follows: QJU JULtp "Oh !" the girl cried excitedly, "I knew it ! I knew there was something to be found out ! It's Greek, isn't it ? Oh, I hope you read Greek ! Do you ?" Astro smiled. "I read Greek as well as I do Eng- lish; but this, unfortunately, isn't Greek at all." "Why, isn't it ? I know some of the letters myself. Look there isn't that a Delta, and that Alpha and Pi?" "Yes, the letters are Greek characters, but they are not Greek words. It's a cipher, Miss Dalrymple." The girl's face fell. "Oh !" she breathed. In her excitement she was almost leaning on his shoulder. She clasped his arm unconsciously as she added, "Surely you can read it? You have solved so many mysteries; you have such wonderful occult power! I've heard that any cipher ever invented could be solved." "And so it can. I have solved harder ones than this, I'm sure. Yes, your locket is certainly getting inter- esting. I'm sorry that I am too busy now to work on I knew there was something to be found out ! " " It's Greek, isn't it?" MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 153 it, though. I have several appointments that can't be postponed. Suppose I wire you as soon as I have read it. Or, better, I'll send you the solution direct by a messenger." "All right. I'll be dying of impatience ; so I hope you'll hurry." "I'll promise it some time to-morrow. But another question: Did your mother read Greek?" "Oh, yes, she had a magnificent education." "And how about the second Mrs. Dalrymple?" The girl's lips curled. "I should say not! Why, she was an ordinary chorus girl when father married her!" "Well," said the Seer, rising to assume a poetic atti- tude, "I shall consult my crystals and see what I can find out. If I am not mistaken, though, the will will be probated and you will come into your inheritance. And I shall be the first to congratulate you !" After a quick friendly hand-shake, like a boy's, Miss Dalrymple walked gracefully out of the room. As soon as she had left, Astro called his assistant and showed her the cipher. Valeska pored over it without speaking for some time. Finally she sighed and said pathetically, "What a pity I don't know Greek!" "Cheer up!" said the Master, with a whimsical grimace. "You probably know as much about it as the one who composed this childish little cryptogram did. It has the mark of the tyro upon it." "Why! how could you tell that?" "Suppose a Fiji Islander attempted to copy a lot of English that is, the so-called Latin alphabet. 154 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Wouldn't you be able to tell instantly that he was ig- norant of the English language? It's the same here. Any one who is used to writing Greek would form the letters easily and swiftly; would write, in short, a pure cursive hand. These Greek letters here are all laboriously copied from some school-book or diction- ary." "Well, who wrote it?" "My dear Valeska," said Astro soberly, "the in- finitesimal vibrations from this locket will, if I absorb myself in contemplation, set up sympathetic waves in my own aura. I am not yet ready to go into a psychic trance. Let us first read the message. It is ridicu- lously simple. I will first separate the message into words, for what here appears to be a set of words is merely letters run together with a few false spaces between them in order to baffle the first glance. He took a pad of paper and wrote out the following in Greek characters : Ae yapQev, pose (3wx. t Ae jrAur Ae When he had finished he looked up at her. "You surely know the Greek alphabet, at least?" "Of course I know that much. We used to use it in boarding-school to write secret messages in. What girl that's ever had a 'frat' boy for a beau doesn't know the Greek alphabet?" "Then this should read easily. Kindly write it out, letter for letter." MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 155 Valeska studied a minute, and then scribbled out : Dans le garden au dessous le rose buck le plus near le pommier. "Partly in English', partly in French, you see/' said Astro. "One word, 'buch', looks like German, but it's not : 'In the garden under the rose bush nearest to the apple tree !' The Greek character Chi was the nearest the writer could get to the English 'sh,' you see, and note the use of the Sigma's, too. How childish to con- sider this a hard puzzle !" "It is the location of Mrs. Dalrymple's missing letter, I suppose," ventured Valeska. "I suppose she was afraid it would be stolen, and so buried it there." "You forget, however, that, if Mrs. Dalrymple was a good Greek scholar, she wouldn't have written this so laboriously." Valeska looked quickly up at him. "Could some one have found the letter and buried it there for his own purpose?" "It is possible; but it seems an unnecessary thing to do. The most suspicious thing about the cipher is that it is so easy." "Then I give it up." Valeska shook her head sadly. "Don't give up, little girl. Simply keep your mind on the fact that there are clever brains at work upon this unsuspecting young woman." He edged his chair over closer and tapped with his finger on the table. "Look here! Who stole this locket in the first place? Why was it stolen ? Was the person who took it the one who returned it ? Or was the person who returned it a friend of Miss Dalrymple's? If he or she were, 156 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES why should the action be done anonymously? Did this person know about the cipher? If so, why leave the cipher there where she could find it and dig up the letter? Several things look suspicious to me. I must go over every point and analyze it. We must, in be- ginning any case of this sort, cast about immediately and find out who are the actors in the drama, who are the ones who will suffer or be benefited by this chain of circumstances. "Now," he straightened up abruptly, "we must know more about Miss Dalrymple's household. To-morrow morning you shall make the trip to Yonkers, ostensibly to return her this locket with our solution of the ci- pher, but actually to enable you to inspect the house, grounds, servants, family history, and the like." At once Valeska became businesslike. "Anything else?" "Yes," he said emphatically. "Tell her that on no account whatsoever is she to dig beneath the rose bush until she hears from me ! Understand ?" Valeska returned next noon with the information that Miss Dalrymple was in high spirits over the solu- tion of the secret message. "Did you tell her not to dig up the place until I came?" "Yes, and she promised to wait." "Well, what else?" Valeska sniffed. "I certainly do not like that maid of hers. I may be only a woman without any more analytical brain than a sand-snipe, but I can tell a sniveling hypocrite of my own sex as far as I can see MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 157 her. There's too much goody-goody talk to suit me. It was 'Yes, dear Miss Dalrymple,' and 'Oh, certainly, Miss Dalrymple/ and, behind her back, 'Isn't Miss Dalrymple the sweetest thing!' When I hear that kind of talk, I look out for a cat." "You think she's two-faced?" "Oh, she's a snake in the grass! Tall, lantern- jawed, skinny, smirking thing! As luck would have it, she caught the same train back to town that I did, or rather she came down on the trolley-car just behind mine, and I sat about three seats behind her when we got the subway at Kingsbridge. I thought I'd see where she went. It was an express, and she got off at Brooklyn Bridge. That's what kept me so long. I followed her over to Brooklyn." Astro started. "Brooklyn?" he ejaculated. "Yes." Valeska was evidently pleased that at last she had made some sort of sensation. "I shadowed her to number 1435 Fulton Avenue, waited half an hour, and, when she didn't come out, hurried back to report." "Well," Astro spoke with a curious expression, "did you find out who lives there?" The girl was crestfallen. "No. I entirely forgot that." He threw it at her pointblank. "Mrs. Myra Dal- rymple !" For a moment she could only gaze at him in aston- ishment. Then, "Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" Her eyes blazed. "Didn't I say she was a snake? Why, then, Fanny is undoubtedly in the pay of the second wife ! Think of it ! She's been spying on that sweet innocent girl ever since her mother died, and has carried the 158 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES news to Mrs. Dalrymple number two. It's out- rageous ! "Oh, but " Valeska sprang up in consternation and faced her master with a look of horror. "I for- got ! Why, I translated the cipher to Miss Dalrymple while the maid was in the room ! What will happen ?" Astro took up his water-pipe with perfect equa- nimity. "My dear, you seem to have made several very lucky blunders to-day." She put her hands to her eyes. "Oh, I don't under- stand ! What about this cipher message ? Where did it come from?" "Let us go at it analytically," he replied calmly. "For the sake of the argument, grant first that the cipher discloses the hiding-place of the lost letter, secreted by the first Mrs. Dalrymple. Very good. Let us sup- pose, also, as a second hypothesis, that the locket was sent by the second Mrs. Dalrymple, knowing of the cipher. Very good again. Now examine the two theories. Is it likely that such a person as this second wife would place a rival claimant to the estate in pos- session of the secret? No. Something is wrong, the first hypothesis, or the second. Take your pick. I say the first is wrong, the cipher does not disclose the place of the letter, but the second is right : Mrs. Dal- rymple sent it. We know that probably she knew Miss Dalrymple visited me, and believed in my power. She, therefore, intended Miss Dalrymple to dig in that spot, cleverly concealing her instrumentality in the matter. That's why the cipher was made so absurdly easy. Do you think it will be well for Miss Dalrymple to dig there? I don't." He paused. "Now suppose the second hypothesis MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 159 to be wrong, that Mrs. Dalrymple did not send the locket. If any one else did, what reason could he have for making such a mystery of it? It would be ab- surd." "I follow all that," said Valeska; "but I can't think why Mrs. Dalrymple would have any motive for in- ducing Miss Dalrymple to dig in the garden." "I think you forget the second Mrs. Dalrymple's character. But you can study it out. What I intend to do is to call on Mrs. Dalrymple this evening and find out. I have a very good case against her, I think, and I intend to make her give up that letter, if she has it. Of course it may have been destroyed, but I don't quite believe it. It is common for criminals, especially women, to refrain from actually destroying the very evidence that may convict them. From some scruple or fear they seldom do it. At any rate, I shall frighten her with what I suspect of her actions in the past, and use my positive knowledge of Fanny's serv- ices." "But what is hidden in the garden? Anything? And if so, how did it get there ?" "Was there no one besides Miss Dalrymple and Fanny living in the house ? No other servants ?" Valeska shook her head, then reflected for an in- stant. "I did hear something about a gardener " She stopped and stared at him. He nodded. "I think that probably completes the last link of the chain. At any rate, I'm willing to risk it. Well, I'll go right over to Brooklyn and have it out. Meet me at the Grand Central Station to-night in time for the eleven-thirty-six train for Yonkers, and we'll see the whole thing through this very night." 160 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Valeska's eyes danced. "I'll be there, with my own little revolver! I hope it will be exciting!" She was at the station at eleven-thirty, and waited until the train had pulled out without seeing the Mas- ter. A half-hour and then a full hour passed without his appearance. She had begun to be alarmed seriously, when, at a quarter past one, she saw him walking rapidly across the great waiting-room toward her. She gave an exclamation of relief ; but at once he took her arm and ran her toward the subway. "Hurry !" he cried in a tense voice. "We can't wait for the one-thirty; so we'll have to make it by the subway and change to the trolley. We have no time to lose ! It's serious !" They caught the train with less than a minute's margin; and once settled in the car, Valeska turned to him anxiously. "I was a fool to let Miss Dalrymple have the transla- tion!" he said. "It was the only serious error I have made in a year. I hope to heaven I may save her yet ; but it's a toss-up now !" "What is it?" Valeska shouted above the shriek of the wheels. Astro said nothing. Seeing that he was too deeply moved to explain, she pressed him no further, covertly watching his restless nervous gestures and his drawn expression all through the ride until the trolley slowed down at Yonkers and stopped on the main street. A solitary cab was standing beside the curb, its driver dozing on the box. A fat man was waddling hurriedly ahead of them, MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 161 signaling with his umbrella to the driver; but Astra, with a rough gesture, threw him aside, ran to the cab, and pushed Valeska quickly inside. "To Miss Dalrymple's, out on Broadway, and drive like lightning!" he ordered. Then he jumped in him- self, and slammed the door in the face of the enraged fat man who was in quick pursuit. The cab drove off at headlong speed. Still Valeska kept silent; but now she shared the excitement of the Master, who bit his knuckles nerv- ously as the horse galloped along the avenue high above the river. All she could hear besides the pound- ing of hoofs was the muttering of the dark man by her side. It seemed an hour's drive, so had the sus- pense wrought upon her, tree by tree, lamp by lamp, house by house, they advanced. She was now pre- pared for anything, for anything save what hap- pened. At last the carriage slowed down and came to a stop. Before the driver had a chance to dismount, Astro had dashed out without paying the least attention to his assistant. She hurried after him. The Dalrymple house stood on the side of the hill, overlooking the quiet moonlit Hudson. It was sur- rounded by a high wall, over the tops of which showed the thick limbs of a few apple trees. The house loomed beyond, a brick edifice of two stories. The iron gate in the wall was locked, and Astro jerked viciously at the bell. At this moment, as if he himself had set it off, a loud explosion reverberated through the night. A woman's scream was next heard, rising in a piercing staccato. Then all was silence again. At length a 162 THE*" MASTER^ OF MYSTERIES shutter was thrown open at one of the front windows of the house, and a shaft of light made a brilliant path through the deep shadow. A woman's head appeared. "What is it?" cried Valeska in terror. "Is Miss Dalrymple shot ?" "God knows!'* Astro muttered grimly. "Help me over the wall. Give me a foot up, Valeska. We're too late, as I feared; but I must find out what has hap- pened. Driver," he yelled back over his shoulder, "go for a doctor as quick as you can !" In an instant he had mounted the top of the wall and dropped to the other side. Valeska heard his foot- steps running up the gravel walk. After that she waited some time in silence. The cab had driven off with a clatter. When, after a wait that seemed interminable, As- tro returned, Valeska's eyes stared to see him with Miss Dalrymple, who was apparently unharmed. She wore a long mackintosh cape, covering her night dress, and her hair was disordered. A look of horror on her pretty face made her seem a woman almost for the first time. She unlocked the gate and put her slender white arms about Valeska. "What has happened?" exclaimed the latter. "What I feared; only, thank heaven, not to Miss Dalrymple !" was Astro's solemn response. "Come this way and you'll see." He led the way past an apple tree at the side of the house. A few pac'es beyond this a great hole was torn in the earth, and, by its jagged appearance and slanting sides, it was evident that it had been made by some explosive. Behind a rose bush lay a woman's body. MISS DALRYMPLE'S LOCKET 163 "Fanny," said Astro. Miss Dalrymple sank beside her maid and began to weep silently. "Do you understand now?" said Astro to his as- sistant. "What a fiend !" she cried. "Her stepmother meant this trap for Miss Dalrymple ! She buried an infernal machine here ! But how was it exploded ?" Astro pointed to the motionless body. "The rea- son why I did not caution Miss Dalrymple not to show her maid the translation of the cipher was because I wanted the second Mrs. Dalrymple to believe that her hellish trick was going to be successful. I was afraid Miss Dalrymple's curiosity would induce her to dig under the rose bush before I came. To-night I wrung a confession from her stepmother revealing this whole frightful business. That's why I hurried. But I had no idea of Fanny's duplicity. Evidently, though she was a spy for the Brooklyn woman, she did not have her complete confidence. Fanny thought she would get the letter before Miss Dalrymple dug it up, and use it to extort money. You see how well she has succeeded." "Oh ! is she dead ?" whispered Valeska. "Luckily, no; only stunned. Mrs. Myra Dalrymple probably won't have to go to the electric chair for it, though she deserves it richly. But, at least, there will be no more contest over the will. In the first place, I got the letter from her to-night; in the second, if I hadn't, we could prevent her opposition by our knowl- edge of this crime. She'll leave the country to-mor- row." The cab was now heard. It stopped, and the driver, with a physician, came running up the walk. 164 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "There has been a little accident here/' said Astro suavely. "A buried gasoline tank exploded, and this woman was injured, doctor. Carry her into the house and do what you can for her." Miss Dalrymple, who had been listening wide-eyed to the conversation, a ravishing figure in the moon- light in her charmingly disheveled state, now put her hand on Astro's arm. "But I don't understand at all," she said, "except that Fanny has been deceiving me for a year. Do you mean to say that Mrs. Dalrymple put that cipher in the locket herself and sent it to me ?" "Certainly," said Astro, "and a very clever trick it was." "But why did she do it that way?" the young girl inquired, still baffled. "Why was she so elaborate about it?" "Because," replied the Master of Mysteries, with a lurking smile, "she knew a great deal more about hu- man nature than you do, and a good deal less than I, that's all!" NUMBER THIRTEEN RECLINING on a huge velvet divan, puffing at his water-pipe lazily, Astro read to the last page of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and then tossed the paper- covered book on the floor with a grunt. Valeska looked up from her work, ready for his comment. "If Stevenson had written that book this year, he'd have known more about dissociated personality," he remarked. "Why, it's nothing but a parable, that's all," Va- leska offered. "Well, it might be more ; it might be science as well. The fundamental idea is wrong. We haven't only two souls or personalities apiece, one good, one bad ; we have an infinite number, according to modern psychol- ogy. Our normal self can break up into any number of combinations of its elements. That is why we are different persons when we're angry, when we dream, when we are drunk or insane." "But isn't there a subconscious self that runs the body at such times?" said Valeska. "I've been read- ing about it. Some psychologists call it the 'subliminal* self." "Rubbish!" Astro rose and walked up and down nervously. "They are not psychologists ; they are 165 166 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES metaphysicians, and not worth considering. They speak as if there were a sort of secret submerged soul coiled up inside us like a chicken in an egg. An oracle in a well ! There is no such thing. We are all of a piece \" "But how about somnambulists who diagnose their own complaints and predict the course of their ill- ness? How about the known cases of multiple per- sonality, Felida X and Miss Beauchamp in Boston? Their alternate selves were distinct and separate." "You should read The Journal of Abnormal Psy- chology" said Astro. "Those selves are fortuitous combinations of the normal self's properties ; they are, strictly, part-selves. The subjects are simply not 'all there'." "And those post-hypnotic time experiments, too?" she persisted. "I have read of their suggesting that a subject should, just fifteen hundred and forty-seven minutes afterward, look at his watch and write down the time. He did it, in every such case." "And you think he has a subliminal self, a sort of psychic alarm clock, that telephones to his waking per- sonality? Nonsense! They managed to tap the me- chanical part of his memory, that's all. It's like look- ing up a book in a library. There are no co-conscious personalities. What happens in 'automatic writing'? A person holds a pencil in his hand, and it seems to write of itself. Spirits? Rubbish! A subliminal self? Poppycock! The hand transcribes merely records of thoughts or memories that have been forgotten or were unnoticed, that's all. We don't think of half we see and hear; we pass myriads of faces in the street, for instance ; but everything is recorded, as on a pho- NUMBER THIRTEEN 167 nographic cylinder, and, under abnormal conditions, the record may be reproduced.'* "Well," said Valeska, "it's all uncanny. Normal psychology is difficult enough to understand ; but when one is four or five different persons I give up. How many am I ?" she added merrily, tossing a mischievous glance at him, as she put on her hat and furs. "You're a million each nicer than the rest." "Then I'm glad!" She looked very demure as she walked toward the door ; but she stopped there to smile frankly back at him, then threw him a good night and vanished. Astro yawned, went to the bookcase, and returned to the couch with a book by Leonide Keating. For a while he labored with his grandiloquent mysticism, with the secret of Om and the central crystal of the universe; then suddenly he sat erect. A noise in the outer room had attracted his attention. Another mo- ment told him that Valeska had returned and was speaking to some one. His name was called. He went out, to find her with a strange girl, strangely clad. Dark-haired and dark-skinned, hand- some, oriental, she was of medium height, with a red shawl drawn about her head, and a short plaid skirt, showing her little feet incased in men's heavy shoes. She had a wild frightened look in her eyes, as Va- leska tried to calm her. Her mouth trembled pitifully, and she crouched in an attitude of fear and self-ef- facement. She looked quickly round at Astro, and ran for the door. Evidently she saw a new terror in him, and trembled all over with excitement. It was all Va- leska could do to restrain her. 168 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES Astro looked the girl over deliberately, noting every detail of countenance and costume, then he raised his eyebrows. "It's the strangest thing!" Valeska explained. "I was walking along Thirty-fourth Street when I met her, and as I passed I thought that she was probably some Italian organ-grinder's wife. Then she turned back and ran up to me and seized my hand. She was evidently terribly frightened at something; but she wouldn't speak. I haven't been able to get her to speak yet. She seemed to want my protection ; so I brought her back here. Who do you suppose she can be ?" Astro addressed the girl in Italian; but got no re- sponse. The girl eyed him as a dog watches the boy who has been torturing him. A question in Russian was as unsuccessful. Greek, Turkish, Yiddish, she appeared to understand none of these, or else refused to answer. The Master of Mysteries became interested. "Bring her into the studio," he said to Valeska. "We'll have something to eat here. Perhaps she is hungry. If so, that will gain us her confidence." So saying, he went to the telephone and ordered a dinner for three sent up from a near-by restaurant. As Valeska gently led the stranger toward the en- trance to the studio, the girl suddenly gave a wail, clasped her hands to her bosom, and stared fixedly, in an ecstasy of terror, at the office wall. There was a large one-day calendar there above Valeska's desk, the sheet showing the words, "Thursday, May 13." Astro hurried to the girl's side, watching her keenly. Valeska put her arms about her reassuringly; but it was not till she had drawn her softly away from the NUMBER THIRTEEN 169 sight of the calendar that the girl's perturbation was over. She walked doggedly into the great dim studio, as if half-asleep. Valeska, with friendly insistence, placed her in a comfortable chair. There the girl sat, staring with expressionless face at the light. "Well," said Valeska, as they watched her, waiting for the dinner to be bought in, "is she deaf, or dumb, or half-witted, or drugged, or what?" Astro had not taken his eyes from the figure of his mysterious visitor. "She's an oriental, of course. That is why she's afraid of me. She has been through some terrible nervous ordeal, I think. I believe she hasn't had enough to eat. Wait till we have had din- ner, and then I'll see what I can do with her. Poor thing! I'm glad it was you and not a police officer who found her, Valeska." The girl began to look about timidly, but with little apparent curiosity. Valeska undid her shawl from her head. A wave of black, fine, curly hair fell with the covering and made the face more picturesque. She nestled a little closer to her protector ; held Valeska's hand to her own cheek. The two, vividly blond and brunette, made a striking picture together. On Astro's table was a small desk calendar, with a memorandum sheet for each day. He quietly took it up and placed it in the girl's lap. Instantly she had a new fit of terror, and leaped up in alarm. Standing in the full light of the electric lamp, they could see her mouth working convulsively as she stared at the num- ber 13. She started on a run for the door. Valeska, quicker than Astro, caught and held her, and again attempted to soothe her. 170 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Oh, don't try any more experiments with her yet !" she implored. "The poor thing can't stand it. She is suffering so that it makes my heart ache. What can be the matter?" "Aphasia, for one thing," said Astro, seating him- self a little way off. "She tried to speak hard enough ; but she couldn't. The girl is not deaf or dumb, any- way. It is growing decidedly interesting." By degrees the girl was coaxed back to the chair, and by the time the dinner had been brought in she was more -easily persuaded to take a seat at the table beside Valeska. Indeed, it was evident that she was nearly starving. She ate ravenously, with great mouth- fuls, picking up the food in her hands. She was not to the manner born, but her prettiness made her sole- cisms pardonable. Once or twice during the meal she stopped, looked at Valeska, and seemed to be trying to speak; but no words came. Her hunger satisfied, she seemed more tractable and courageous. She looked at Astro without fear. Toward Valeska, she showed the devotion of a dog. The table cleared away, Astro took a sheet of paper and wrote down the number 13. The girl trembled, but now not so violently. She looked up at Valeska with a mute appeal. "Don't!" said Valeska. Astro wrote a column of three figures : 6, 5, and 2. The girl stared at it without intelligence. The Roman numerals XIII did not excite her at all. Next, he wrote the word "thirteen" ; she was still unmoved. He spoke the word; no response. .Then he placed the paper in front of her, and put the pencil in her hand. She took NUMBER THIRTEEN 171 it with evident familiarity, and her hand trembled. They saw her bite her lip she was indubitably at- tempting to communicate with them but she was un- able to make a mark on the sheet. "H'm!" said Astro thoughtfully. "Agraphia, as well. Now we're getting warmer. I think I shall get it after a while." "Why, to me it seems more impossible than ever!" Valeska said. "Strange that we should have just been talking about it," he replied. "It's a case of lost identity, disassoci- ated personality, beyond doubt. I think I can solve the riddle if I can hypnotize her. I'll try." He did try, but without avail. At his first mesmeric gestures she shrank from him in fear. As he persisted, trying with a crystal ball held in front of and above her eyes, to send her into a hypnotic sleep by means of a partial paralysis of the optic nerve, she resolutely defended herself. The strangeness of his motions aroused her suspicion, and she refused to concentrate her attention sufficiently to be influenced. Direct ver- bal suggestion, the simplest and most effective method of inducing hypnosis, was of course out of the ques- tion, since she did not appear to understand any lan- guage he spoke. "There is only one other method, if even that will succeed," Astro said at last. "If we can get her to write automatically, we may learn something. Her agraphia prevents her writing with her conscious mind. We'll try what is called the method of 'abstraction'. It is a common experiment. One holds his patient ab- sorbed in a conversation that compels his utmost men- 172 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES tal capacity, in Hebrew, for instance, if he under- stands Hebrew, and while that is going on some one places a pencil in his hand and whispers in his ear. What you have called the 'subconscious self commu- nicates by writing, and the normal conscious person- ality is unaware that he is writing." "But how can we engage her mind so absorbingly ?" Valeska asked hopelessly. "We don't know her lan- guage, whatever it may be." Astro paced the room for several minutes, thinking deeply. He stopped occasionally to look at the girl fixedly, and resumed his contemplation. Finally he went up to her, examined her palms, and his face lighted up. "I believe she's musical !" he said. Valeska stared. "But then" "We'll see. Have the pencil ready to put in her hand, and the paper on the table by it. Watch her closely, and see if she is affected by the music. If she seems to be, give her the pencil." With that, he walked to the piano, sat down, and began to play the tenth rhapsody of Liszt. As he swung into the abandon of its more temperamental passages, he seemed himself to be absorbed, to lose himself in the intricate harmonies. He was a skilled and artistic musician. He swayed to and fro, giving himself up physically and mentally to the passion and beauty of the themes, and it was not till the echoes of the last divine chords had ceased reverberating that he slowly turned on the piano stool and seemed to awaken. "I've got it !" cried Valeska, and, springing up, she NUMBER THIRTEEN 173 ran over and handed him a sheet of paper. It was partly covered with rude drawings, apparently mean- ingless rough sketches, mingled with attempts at let- tering : He took the sheet eagerly, and went to the table under the electric lamp to scrutinize the figures. "It's not very promising material, is it?" said Va- leska. "On the contrary, it's a fine beginning; only it will take a bit of doing to make it out." "I see the fatal 13 has put in its appearance again." The girl, who had seemed to be in a sort of stupor, now leaned over the table and inspected the sheet. At sight of the figures 13 she gave a moan, and threw her arms about Valeska, trembling all over. "Poor girl!" said Astro. "I'm afraid there's some- thing big back of all this. She's a Turk, or an Ar- 174 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES menian, or a Syrian. See the Turkish flag that she has roughly drawn here? . . . Babi . . . Wait!" He had risen to go to the bookcase, when the girl reached over and would have seized the paper, had not Valeska prevented her. Astro turned to ejaculate: "Babi?" and again, "Baha-Ullah?" The girl quivered ; but did not speak. "She may be a member of the Bahai sect, followers of the Bab, the Incarnation of the Almighty, whose religion is not tolerated by the faithful in Persia. They are all kept to one city, where they live like primitive Christians; indeed, their faith is a mixture of Chris- tianity and Mohammedanism. We'll see. Valeska, she's had enough for to-night. You must take her home and take care of her, and bring her back to- morrow. Until then I must stay up and think it out." For hours after Valeska had left with her ward, As- tro walked up and down the length of the great dim studio. Occasionally he threw himself at full length on the big couch in concentrated thought. At intervals he stood erect, his eyes fixed in abstraction on some trophy of arms on the wall, or gazing into the lucent trans- parency of his crystal ball. Once or twice he sat down at the table and gazed long at the hieroglyphic marks made on the paper by the strange girl. At three in the morning, he partially undressed and lay down on the couch to sleep. He rose at seven, bathed, and went outdoors for a walk. When he returned, an hour later, Valeska was in the studio alone. Her eyes were red ; she seemed ashamed and self-reproachful. NUMBER THIRTEEN 175 "The girl has disappeared!" she exclaimed the mo- ment Astro appeared. "When I woke up, she wasn't in the room. She must have risen and dressed while I was asleep. But I found this." She held out a short curved dagger, in a morocco sheath. Astro, withdrawing the blade, found it was engraved with an Arabic inscription. He read the motto aloud : "For the heart of a dog, the tongue of a serpent!" "Ah !" he commented, "this may help some. Our little friend apparently isn't so timid as she appeared. But, somehow, this doesn't look like the property of a Babist. In spite of their many persecutions, I believe they are usually non-resistants. Well, Valeska, we'll have to find the girl, now! Come along with me im- mediately." His green limousine was already at the door in waiting. Both jumped in, and as they drove to the southern end of the city Astro explained : "There are two Syrian quarters in New York. One is in Brooklyn, the other down on Washington Street, near the Battery. We'll go to that one first, and see what we can find there. The Turkish flag reminds me that that is often hung outside stores where they sell Turkish rugs. We'll try that clue afterward." Reaching Washington Street, the two left the motor-car and walked toward the Battery, past rows of squalid houses. At every corner Astro stopped and gazed about deliberately. Finally, he seized Valeska's arm with a quick ges- ture. "Look at that sign !" he exclaimed. On West Street, facing the Hudson River, but with 176 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES its rear abutting on a vacant lot on Washington Street, was a huge soap factory. Painted on the dead wall was a sign whose letters were eight or ten feet in height. Valeska read it aloud: "Use Babrock's Brown Soap." She stopped and looked at Astro in bewilder- ment. "What about it?"" He drew the drawing from his pocket and pointed out the lettering. "Don't you see ?" he cried. " 'BABP P That's a part of the sign, surely. Look at those two buildings on each side of the sign. Now look at this row of houses. From some one of those windows the sign must present the appearance she has drawn. Making the drawing subconsciously, she has merely copied something with which she has been familiar, seeing it, probably, every day. We must find the win- dow from which the sign looks just like her drawing." He looked at the sign again carefully, estimating its height and the relative position of the two buildings whose roofs would cut off the first and last group of letters. A rough triangulation led him to a house in the lower part of which was a cobbler's shop. This he entered. "Are there any rooms to let in this house ?" he asked of the man at the bench. The man nodded. "Go up-stairs and ask at second floor," he replied. "You see Carbon Soumissin; he keeps the house." Up-stairs went Astro and Valeska, and plunged into a dark narrow hallway. A doorway opened part way and a whiskered man looked out. He had an evil face, blotched with red spots, and wore a fez. He was smok- ing a Turkish cigarette. "What you want here?" NUMBER THIRTEEN 177 "I'd like to look at your front room, third floor." A murmur of voices came from inside the room. The man turned and growled some foreign oath. Then he turned and looked at Astro with a vicious inquisi- tion. "All right/' he said at last ; "you go up. Door open. Three dollars a week." Astro waited for no more; but ran up the stairs, followed by his assistant. Once out of earshot, he stopped for a moment to pull out the paper again, and pointed to the first drawing on the sheet. "Fez," he said, and looked at her meaningly. "The old man with the cigarette?" "Probably. Now we'll find out what they have been up to." The hall bedroom was incredibly dirty, but con- tained nothing but a cot bed with vile coverings, a chair, and a crazy wash-stand, over which hung a square cracked mirror. Astro first went to the grimy window and looked out. He pointed to the sign, and Valeska followed his eyes. One of the buildings across the street cut off the first word, "use," and the other, with a small dormer, obscured all after "bab" with the exception of the upper half of the R. It showed, in fact, precisely as the girl had drawn it. "This is the room, all right. Now let's examine it." He took up the chair first, and looked it over care- fully. Then he pointed to marks on the sides of the back, where the paint was worn smooth. The marks were about an inch wide, and similar ones showed on the legs and on the side rails of the seat. "This is where straps have chafed the paint," he commented. "She was undoubtedly fastened securely. 178 [THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES ^ Did you notice where the marks or bruises were on her?" "Yes; they were bad enough for me to remember. There were red marks on her wrists and on her arms below her shoulders; and her arms were almost cov- ered with bruises ; but small ones." "Oh, they pinched her, no doubt. Undoubtedly she had a rough time of it, if one may judge the character of the villain with the fez. Well, we must find her. There's no use inquiring here. If they have used this room for a torture chamber, we'll get nothing out of them, and they'll grow suspicious." They went down-stairs, and, while Valeska waited in the street, Astro drove a bargain with Carbon Soumissin. Luckily the lower hall was dark, and the Turk could not perceive Astro's oriental countenance. But the Master of Mysteries had an important piece of news to tell when he rejoined Valeska, "They were talking Arabic, or rather Turkish. I heard one of them quote the motto we saw on the dag- ger. Now I know what they are. Have you heard of the Hunchakists?" The papers had been so full of one of the recent murders of this dreaded Armenian society, that Va- leska knew roughly what the name implied. "Every country seems to have its guerrilla assas- sins," said Astro, as they drove up-town. "But the Ar- menian Hunchakists are more dangerous than any of the others, because they are better organized. Their object is usually extortion. Now we must visit the rug merchants. I'm afraid we're on the track of something serious this time." Their route led them directly into the heart of the All right," he said at last, " you go up. Door open " NUMBER THIRTEEN 179 mystery. On Eighteenth Street, where, in front of a Turkish rug store, the crescent of Turkey hung out, there was a great crowd gathered, pressing about the entrance. It took Astro little time to discover the cause of the disturbance. The merchant, Marco Dyorian, had been found, when his shop was opened by his head bookkeeper, lying in a pool of blood in his office, shot in the back. He was not dead, though mor- tally wounded and unconscious. He was now at the hospital, at the point of death. A policeman guarded the door, preventing any one from entering. Astro and Valeska caught sight of his cap over the heads of the bystanders, and when the crowd eddied they saw his face. "Why, it's McGraw!" "So it is!" said Astro. "What luck!" They squirmed their way through the crowd, to find the burly police officer who, with Astro's assistance, had been able to gain considerable reputation in con- nection with the Macdougal Street dynamite outrages. The two were now fast friends. Indeed, McGraw owed his lieutenant's cap to the help of the Master of Mysteries. He therefore welcomed them both with a grin. "What is the straight of this, McGraw?" Astro asked. "Hunchakist murder, sure!" responded the lieu- tenant. "I thought as much. Who did it?" "Oh, we got 'em all right this time. No thanks to you, sir, for once, though I'd always be glad of your help. This one's a girl who done it." Astro and Valeska looked at each other. "A girl?" i8o THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "Yes, sir. They'll be bringing her down presently. It's only fifteen minutes ago we got her. She was hid- ing out in a back closet where nobody thought to look at first. She was in a dead faint." "What does she look like?" "Faith, I don't know that myself. I've only just got here with the reserves. But if you stand here, you'll see her come down. There's the wagon already. Stand back there!" The crowd scattered, and the patrol wagon drove up with a clatter. Several officers jumped out and ran up-stairs. Astro turned to Valeska and spoke under his breath. "What time did you see her last?" "I got up about midnight, and she was lying on the couch." She put her hand on his arm. "Oh, it couldn't have been she!" she exclaimed. At that moment the officers brought their prisoner down-stairs. It was indeed the girl who had been in the studio the night before, and had gone home with Valeska. Just as the group passed, Astro touched Mc- Graw's shoulder. "Let me speak to her a moment. I know this girl." McGraw stared; but his faith in the occult powers of the Seer was so great that he delayed the officers. They stopped for a moment. Astro addressed the girl in Turkish. "Let me help you," he said. She looked at him sulkily. But it was not with the blank expressionless face of yesterday. Her brows drew together. "I don't know you," she said at last. NUMBER THIRTEEN 181 Valeska pushed forward and took Her hand. "Don't you know this lady ?" Astro asked. The girl stared. Some half-forgotten memory seemed to stir within her. Her lips moved silently as she stared hard at Valeska's face. Then she shook her head, and said, "I don't know." "I can't keep 'em waiting," McGraw whispered. "Let her go, and you can call at the Tombs to see her again. I'll see that you get in. Go on, now !" The girl was escorted to the wagon and took her seat, facing the crowd stolidly, an officer on each side of her. Once, before they drove away, her eyes turned to where Valeska stood in the doorway, and the same puzzled expression crossed her face. "McGraw," said Astro, after the wagon had gone, "how'd you like to get a captain's commission?" McGraw hastily took him aside. "You don't mean to say you know about this job already?" he asked ex- citedly. "I know one thing. A man you want lives at 101 Washington Street, and I think his name is Carbon Soumissin. At any rate, I'd advise you to get right down there immediately and run in every one you find in the house. Hurry up before they've gone !" McGraw's eyes gleamed. "And you'll coach me then what to do?" he asked. "Yes." "All right." Hastily summoning a police sergeant, he gave him a few orders, and then hurried to the station. "Where was the wounded man taken ?" Astro asked the sergeant." "To the receiving hospital." 182 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "We'll go over there first, then." And Astro and Valeska made their way to the limousine and ordered the driver to the place. "But," said Valeska, "how queerly she acted! I'm so disappointed that she didn't recognize me, after all I'd done for her. I don't know what to make of it." "Don't you see? She has waked up. Yesterday she was quite another person, a dissociated personality. She had no memory, and had even lost the power to talk or write. That is often the case. Owing to some severe mental shock, her normal personality was broken up into parts, so to speak. She had just enough of the functions of her mind synthesized to have voli- tion, and that part-self resembled a crazy person. She had been tortured and starved, no doubt in order to force her to commit this crime, by Soumissin. Some- how she managed to escape from that house, and then her reason left her. You found her what she was, half-witted, with only sense enough to appeal to your protection. She had forgotten everything, every- thing, that is, except something concerning the num- ber 13. Now the question is, when did she come to herself and her full rationality? Was it when she got up in your room to leave you " "Or was it when she got into the rug store?" Va- leska added, with a look of horror in her eyes. "That's the question. Let's hope that Dyorian is conscious by the time we reach the hospital. Every- thing depends on that !" Arrived at the hospital, Astro entered the office and asked for the house physician. A few words only were necessary to explain the palmist's right of inquiry, and his description of the Syrian girl's mental condition NUMBER THIRTEEN 183 was of great professional interest to the doctor. He promised to go to the Tombs and see her as soon as possible. Dyorian, it seemed, lay at the point of death ; but, finding how important it was to have the exact time of the shooting determined, the doctor consented to go up to the ward and attempt to revive him suffi- ciently to answer the question. Astro and Valeska waited for him in the office. It was fifteen minutes before he returned. "I could just barely make him understand," he said, "but I am sure that he did at last. With almost his last breath he whispered, 'Ten o'clock/ adding that he didn't know who shot him. He died before I left the bedside." Acting on Astro's hint, McGraw not only succeeded in capturing a half-dozen Turks and Armenians in the Washington Street den, but, exercising the "third de- gree" in a manner for which he was famous, extorted a confession from one of the prisoners. It was the more easy because the man, who had honestly believed himself to be working for the cause of Armenian free- dom, discovered that he had been merely the tool of a band of blackmailers and murderers. He had witnessed the cruel torture of the young Syrian girl ; but had been told that she was a Turkish spy who was plotting to betray the Armenian cause to the Sublime Porte. On hearing her alibi, sworn to by Valeska, the girl was released; but she was ten days under the care of the hospital doctor before her nerves were recovered enough for her to be brought to the studio. She had been told of Valeska's kindness; but could remember nothing that had happened since her mind first began 184 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES to wander under the effects of pain and starvation. But her intuition recognized her protectress without the aid of reason, and she fell on her knees like a slave at Valeska's feet. She could not speak a word of Eng- lish; but her eyes were sufficiently eloquent to prove her gratitude. She treated Astro as if he were her lord and master, watching him continually. After she had told of her wakening to her full rea- son in Valeska's room, she described the terror that had come over her at the thought of Dyorian. The thirteenth was the day set for his murder. Her tor- mentors had in vain tried to force her to do the deed ; but, when they found she was intractable, they had told her that, whether she did it or not, Dyorian should surely die on the thirteenth. It was with the idea of saving him from his fate that she made more strenuous attempts to escape, and, after her memory had gone, the number 13 still inspired her with terror and dread. Wakening at Valeska's, this thought had been her first, and she dressed quietly and stole out of the house to warn him. She had found the rug merchant al- ready shot, and the horror of the scene had in her weak state again deprived her of reason. She had run from the body and that was all she could remember until she was restored to consciousness by two police- men. Then, her fear of being accused as the murderess had nearly distraught her wits again. She looked curiously now at the pictures she had drawn while in the state of abstraction, and identified the sign, the fez, the Turkish flag, and the number 13. "But what is this one?" Astro asked, pointing to the one drawing he had not identified. NUMBER THIRTEEN 185 The girl shuddered, and reach for Valeska's hand. When she could speak, she explained to Astro. "It was awful, you can't know how awful it was till you have tried it. I was three days strapped to that chair, and on the wall right opposite my head was a mirror. I had to look at myself all day. It grew more and more horrible, till I couldn't stand it. By turning my head I could see the sign, but always my own face was in front of me, staring, staring, staring. It grew hideous, sinister, diabolic. After a while it wasn't I, at all. It was a devil leering at me, and I knew he was inside of me looking through my own eyes. Oh, God !" She paused, and looking up at Valeska said simply, "She is lucky. She can look at her face in the glass. I can't ever use a mirror any more. It frightens me." Astro nodded his head slowly. Then he said, with a faint smile, "Yes, I can fancy no more exquisite tor- ture for a woman to bear." Then, before he translated the speech to Valeska, he turned to her with a whimsical expression. "What would you do if you were to be deprived of mirrors of any kind for the rest of your life?" "I think I'd commit suicide," she replied, blushing. "There'd be no need for that. I shall always be able to tell you how pretty you are. But now we must cure this little girl. I'm sure that a hypnotic treatment will soon convince her how pretty she is, and she won't be afraid to prove it." Valeska looked up archly, and added, "Neither shall I!" THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER "T NOTICE that most of the talk about Tulliver's J- running for governor has stopped," said Astro, dropping his morning paper and looking over to where Valeska, his assistant, was copying horoscopes from the Master's notes. "I'm disappointed," she replied. "There seemed to be hope for the regeneration of the city government at last. It is strange how Tulliver has let up on the prose- cution of those Brooklyn aldermen, though, isn't it?" "Strange ? How ?" Astro gazed at her keenly ; but it was perfectly evident that he was confident of his own opinion. "Why, he began so well and so strenuously; and then, just before the case was to be brought for trial he seems to have dropped the whole thing. It doesn't seem to be like what we know of his character, some- how." "Do you believe that he's been bribed ?" Astro bent his dark brows. "You never can tell nowadays. But he's such a fighter ordinarily that it looks suspicious. Why, I've heard extraordinary tales of his persistence and his energy. He takes no more sleep than Edison, he works night and day, and can do usually four times as 186 THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 187 mucfi work as an ordinary man could in similar cir- cumstances." Astro nodded his picturesque dark head thought- fully, and took his customary seat on the divan by his water-pipe. With a toss of his hand he threw his red silken robe about his legs. The moonstone aigret in his oriental turban nodded rhythmically as he thought it over. Finally he said : "The district attorney has not been bribed, Valeska, I'm sure of that. I have seen him and talked with him. I've studied his hand, his face, his gait, his voice, his gesture. Money can't buy that man. He not only has the energy you speak of, Valeska, he has a tre- mendous moral force besides. There is no graft in Tulliver. But there's something wrong. This lack of power, just when he ought to strike hardest, is suspi- cious. It's sinister. I tell you!" he added, rising, as the idea caught and held him with a new force. "This gang of boodlers has got him somehow! It's not a square fight !" Valeska came up to him, more than commonly moved by his emotion. "Oh!" she exclaimed, taking his hand, "why can't you help him, if there is a plot? I'd like to see you try your hand at something more worth while than mere murders and jewel mysteries. You're wasting your talents on such ordinary detective work. Why not offer your services? Why not take up the fight for him, and with him, if it's possible, and help him win? You'll never have a more worthy cause!" In her excitement her voice had become vibrant, thrilling with a warm personal note not wholly ac- counted for by her words. Astro perceived it, glanced 188 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES at her, turned away suddenly. His voice had changed too, when he said : "Shall I offer my services?" "Oh, do!" "You know that it is not my policy nor my custom to do that." "It's your duty." He swung round to her and took both her hands in a strong grip. "If you ask me, Valeska, I'll do it." And so Astro undertook to discover what was the trouble with Tulliver. It was a delicate proceeding, at first, and it devolved upon Valeska herself to undertake the initial steps. It was three or four days before she had gone over the ground well enough to select the point of attack; but at the end of that time she had made up her mind that Mrs. Tulliver was in the line of least resistance to her efforts. It did not take long for Valeska to discover that Mrs. Tulliver had a baby, and that the baby had a nurse, that the two went every fine morning to take the air in Central Park. In two days Valeska was there also with a baby borrowed for the occasion. Valeska waited at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Sixty-fourth Street, until little Alice Tulliver and her nurse came down the steps of the Tulliver house. After that it was easy to make connections in the park and to happen to sit down on the same bench. To any one who watched Valeska's whimsical charm, and pretty expressive face, a confidential acquaint- anceship was inevitable and the most natural thing in the world. THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 189 In such wise Valeska soon learned that Tulliver was suffering from what the doctors were pleased to term nervous prostration; that he had been advised to take a rest ; and that Mrs. Tulliver was much worried over the situation. Mrs. Tulliver was ambitious and took great interest in her husband's political career. There was an atmosphere of great anxiety in the house on Sixty-fourth Street. Valeska was a willing and sympathetic listener to the nurse's confidence, and watched her chance for in- terposition. It came unexpectedly the very next day, when Mrs. Tulliver herself came across the two en- gaged in conversation on a park bench. There was lit- tle need for diplomacy. Valeska's attractive manners produced an immediate effect upon Mrs. Tulliver's emotional, intuitive nature; and seeing with her rare perception that frankness was the quickest and easiest method with her, Valeska boldly told her who she was, and offered her services. Mrs. Tulliver was too full of her own forebodings not to grasp immediately at this unlooked-for hope in her trouble. She confessed that her suspicions had been aroused, and, though they were not shared by her husband, she was convinced that the gang of boodling aldermen, desperate at the prospect of conviction, were making underhanded attacks upon their chief enemy, the district attorney. They were not of a sort to stop at any crime that would rid them of his strenuous prosecution. Of Astro's fame as Master of Mysteries, Mrs. Tul- liver had heard, and she willingly consented to lay the matter before him. His name was already known at the district attorney's office through the many crimes 190 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES tHat, in unofficial cooperation with the police, he had pursued and solved. Her story, after reaching the studio, amply con- firmed Astro's suspicions. Tulliver had, the week be- fore the date set for the opening of the trial, worked hard night and day over the data. His material was complex and voluminous ; it required all his energy to select the proper points of testimony, to arrange his plan of prosecution, and to divide the work to be done by his assistants. All had gone well till Saturday. He had worked at his office till noon, and then had gone to a barber shop in the vicinity of City Hall Square and been shaved and manicured. That night he had in- tended going to the house of a friend for an evening's entertainment and relaxation, before beginning on the arduous final preparations for the trial. These last important investigations he had put off till Sunday, thinking that the recreation on Saturday night would help him to devote his whole energy to the case. On Saturday night he showed extreme lassitude and manifested an unwillingness to go out with his wife. She had induced him to attend the entertainment, how- ever; but, his fatigue increasing, they had both re- turned early and retired. On Sunday he slept late. He was worried about the case ; but felt almost unable to rise and go to work. He had, after breakfast, dragged himself to his study and shut himself up with his papers. There Mrs. Tulliver had found him fast asleep at dinner-time. He made a second attempt to go about his work in the afternoon, and fell asleep a second time, showing extreme exhaustion. At nine o'clock he roused himself sufficiently to ask his wife to THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 191 telephone to the judge of the court to postpone the case, and to notify his assistants of the necessary delay. A doctor called on Monday against Tulliver's wishes and diagnosed his lassitude as nervous prostration. He had prescribed a remedy, and after taking it Tulliver had gradually recovered his customary state of health and energy. This attack of exhaustion, however, com- ing just before an important phase of the case was reached, and the rumors of bribery in connection with the district attorney, which had already been voiced in some of the city papers, had affected him as deeply as they had disturbed Mrs. Tulliver. He showed no disin- clination whatever to drop the case; in fact he was more ardent than ever in wishing to bring the boodlers to justice. But already his delays and apparent lack of interest had seriously damaged his political career in the minds of the people. Astro listened to all this attentively, with only an occasional question. A pretty woman at all times, with a proud, spiritedly-poised head and soft dark eyes, Mrs. Tulliver's distress made her beauty pathetic. It was plainly evident that, much as she was moved by the fear of her husband's illness and the sacrifice of his political future, what affected her still more strongly was the fear of some stain on his reputation ; and, per- haps, in the dim shadows of her mind, unacknowl- edged, but sinisterly insistent, was the specter of a doubt of his probity. She knew well enough the cun- ning and the ingratiating methods of political corrup- tion, and though she would not admit even to herself that her husband was venal, the horror of this potent secret force prostrated her. It was Astro himself who gave her back her courage 192 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES and her faith. She regained her strength at his offers of assistance. As he spoke, slowly, gently, command- ingly, as she watched his handsome, mysteriously sen- tient face, some of his secret power went from him to her. The very strangeness of that face, with its ori- ental calm, with its oriental wisdom, with its beatific sympathy, gave her trust. She sat, so, watching him, one hand in Valeska's hand, till he had finished. One question, however, before she left, he put in a way to renew her alarm. "Who is your cook?" he asked. "Why, we've had her only about nine months; but she came recommended highly. Do you think " "Can you see to it that all his food is prepared under your personal supervision, or that he takes his lunches only at large, well-known restaurants?" She thought she could do both. "Be careful, then," he said. "And, for the last thing, find out all his movements in what detail you can, both in the past and in the future. Telephone me every day what he intends to do. And, by the way, what is the date set for the opening of the trial ?" "Next Monday." "Then we haven't much time. But we'll win !" As she left the great studio Valeska accompanied her to the outer door. Here she paused and clutched the girl's hand. "What did he mean about the cook?" she demanded. "Does he think it can be as bad as that, that they would try poison ?" "Oh, he's only anxious to take all the precautions possible." "Then I shall have to tell my Husband I have been here." THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 193 "As you please," said Valeska. "Only be sure that you have the most powerful defender in New York. Astro has never failed yet." She returned to the studio, to find Astro already absorbed in a medical book. He had taken down a bound volume of The Lancet, and pointed to it. "Look that over carefully and see if you can find that article on the Pathology of Fatigue. I can't recall what year it came out ; but it was the report of the ex- periments of an Austrian, I think." She looked at him in surprise. "You have a theory already?" "No, not quite ; but there is a disturbance in my memory, there's something I can't quite place, or ac- count for; if I don't try too hard, it will float up un- consciously. That's why I want you to look it up. But our line of investigation is plain." "The barber?" "Or the manicure. I didn't dare ask about that. I don't want Tulliver to suspect. Of course she'll tell him everything; I can see that, I expected it. But I must get to that particular barber shop to-day and be- gin to watch." "Is it poison, then?" "Undoubtedly poison ; but whether physical or moral I don't yet know." "But you seemed to be so sure of his honesty." "I knew she would tell him everything. It was the only way. There is always the chance of corruption. Dishonesty is as much a disease as cholera. One can become infected by it as well as by a germ. I said it was my business to know human nature; but no one can know it, except to be sure that it's liable to all 194 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES sorts of dangers and diseases. No one is immune. We can only fight infection of all sorts. If this man Tulli- ver is being poisoned, I'll find out how and by whom, and I'll save him. If he is being corrupted morally, is there any less reason why I should help him ? It may be the first time in his life and the last. I know only that I like him, I admire his wife, and if I can beat that gang I'll do it ! Selah. I have spoken." It was late that afternoon when Astro returned from his investigations. By his look, Valeska knew that he was worried. Mrs. Tulliver had telephoned and said that the district attorney would be at his office all day and would return directly from there. From her tone it was evident that her husband did not take the Seer's assistance so gratefully as she herself did. Astro lis- tened with a frown. "Well, I'll save him in spite of himself, then. I con- fess it looks dubious. I saw our old friend, Lieutenant McGraw of the detective force, and he succeeded in finding out for me some of Tulliver's habits. He patronizes a small barber shop on Broadway, opposite the post-office, but doesn't go there regularly. Most often drops in there on Saturdays. I went in and got a shave. There was a tow-headed manicure in a cor- ner, with about ten pounds of bracelets and a Marcel wave of the Eighth-Avenue type, crisp as galvanized iron. I didn't like her, on several counts ; I somehow felt wrong with her. I had my nails attended to, and she was too smooth. She never refuses an invitation to dinner, that girl. "Now," he continued, "we can't possibly investigate THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 195 this thing from the Brooklyn end. There are too many in that gang of boodlers for us to follow them all. So we have to trace it back from the district attorney, and find some point of contact with the aldermen. If Tul- liver was bought up, he wouldn't have worked so hard up to Saturday noon. He would have taken it easy and put his assistants off. Something must have hap- pened on Saturday, and if anything happened, whether he was doped or bribed, the only place for it to have happened was in that barber shop. It's too bad I can't ; trail her to-night; but I have a positive appointment with Colonel Mixter. You'll have to shadow the man- icure. She leaves the shop at six o'clock ; so you must hurry." With that, he threw himself on his divan, spread a pack of cards in front of him, and began "getting Napoleon out of Saint Helena." It was a habit of his when most puzzled with his strange problems to rest his mind occasionally by a game of solitaire. It was a sort of mental bath from which he rose always re- freshed and ready for a new attack of the question in hand. "Did you find that article in The Lancet?" he asked as Valeska was preparing to leave the studio. "No," was her reply ; "but I found a reference to it in an article on the anatomy of the vasomotor nerves. The name was Weichardt, wasn't it?" "By Jove! that's it!" he cried joyfully. "Weich- ardt, Weichardt!" he repeated the name to himself. "I'll get it now! I'll just let that boil subconsciously a while." Valeska took the subway down-town, reaching the 196 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES barber shop just in time to see, through the basement windows, an orange-haired girl putting on her hat be- hind a screen in the corner. She nodded to the men at the chairs as she passed and came slowly up the steps to the street, still fingering the terrific pompadour that jutted from her forehead. She walked slowly down Broadway, glancing at her watch once, and loi- tering occasionally at shop-windows. It was evident that she was a bit too early for some appointment. At the corner of Fulton Street she stopped and waited. It was a long time before a man, smoking a cigar, came up to her and stopped without lifting his hat. Then he took the girl's arm familiarly, and the two walked to the subway entrance again, descended, and took a Brooklyn train, and got off at the Borough sta- tion. Valeska had meanwhile not only kept on their track, but had secured a seat where she could watch them at close range. The man looked like a political heeler, a barkeeper, or a sport. He might indeed have been all three. The two seemed very friendly; the girl's stri- dent laugh sounded more than once through the car. In Brooklyn they went to a flashy restaurant that was generally frequented by the sporting element. The man ordered dinner and wine. As the meal proceeded, the manicure's laugh grew louder, and she became more familiar. It was not a pleasant sight. From here the two came out upon the electric- lighted sidewalk, debated for a while at the curb, then got into a street-car. At Waverley Avenue they got out and walked up to number 1321. Here, rather to Valeska's surprise, the girl left the man abruptly, ran up the steps, took out a key, and entered. The man THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER 197 walked slowly back, boarded a car, and rode down- town. Valeska followed him. She got out with him at Preston Street, and from here her task was more diffi- cult. Keeping at a safe distance, however, she saw him stop at a two-story wooden house. At that mo- ment a man, approaching from the other direction with two dogs held in leash, met him. The two entered the house together, and Valeska approached and reconnoi- tered. As she passed, she heard the dogs barking, and mingled with the noise was the sound of whining, as of animals in pain. The lower windows were dark; but the three above, on the second floor, were lighted. Creeping softly up the steps, Valeska laid her ear to the keyhole and listened. There was a low but distinct sound, a rumbling as of wheels turning, wheels with a heavy load, as if some machine were being labori- ously worked. Two days passed, and each night Valeska took up the scent, following the manicure girl across to Brook- lyn as before. Both times, however, the girl was alone. The first night she dined alone at a little dairy near the Borough station and went to a vaudeville show after- ward. The second night she went directly home. The next day was Saturday. "We seem to have got nothing yet," she said to As- tro that morning. "I confess I'm discouraged. If that man I saw is the go-between he covers his tracks well. If he hands her any drug or money it is impossible for us to detect it. If we could only get into that house on Preston Street !" 198 THE MASTER OF MYSTERIES "That's impossible," said Astro ; "it's too well guard- ed. I've been over there to see it. I was looking- for a house to rent, you know, and found out enough to arouse my suspicions. The neighbors are gossiping about the place already. Dogs go in; but don't come out. There are moans and howls all night long, and it's getting to be a scandal. But to-day I hope to find out something definite about the relations that exist between Tulliver and that girl. McGraw has agreed to tip me off when Tulliver goes to the shop, and I think I can get a chance to watch the two together." Nothing had been heard from Mrs. Tulliver in the meantime. To Valeska's mind that in itself was suspi- cious. Astro's story when he returned did not relieve her mind. "I got in after Tulliver," he said, "and was shaved, just managing to miss my turn with the manicure lady. Tulliver had his nails polished, as usual. She bright- ened up considerably at sight of him. It seemed to me that she was excited. He talked and laughed a little with her ; but not enough to prove any great intimacy. She was undoubtedly nervous, however. Once she went behind the screen and did something, I don't know what. But she had ample opportunity to convey a secret message to him without arousing the least suspicion. I confess I'm worried about him." With this, Valeska had to be content for the time, and she heard no more till Monday morning. Then, upon her arrival at the studio, Astro met her with a black face. "Tulliver is down again!" he said immediately. "Mrs. Tulliver telephoned yesterday at ten o'clock in the morning, while her husband was asleep. He abso- s 3 o 0*