（~ ~ ~ ~ ~ … ：） ======= · · · · · * *----+ |- ±*===============================================---- ----------- ！！！！！！！！ |-|-·|-|- - *** --★ →（ ）. THE TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB JBy UClilliam 3 obngton THE MYSTERY IN THE RITSMORE THE APARTMENT NEXT Door THE HOUSE of WHISPERs LIMPY THE BOY WHo FELT NEGLECTED THE YELLOW LETTER THE TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB THE NEw York PUBLIC LIBRARY A8TOR, LENox TILDEN Founſeations |× ： '', （ ) • • • • LIMPID, FRIGHTENED ND HIMSELF GAZING INTO THE BLACK - - HE FOU EYES OF A PRETTY. ITALIAN GIRL See page 142 FRONTISPIECE. THE TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB By w willIAM JOHNSTON + T- WITH FRONTISPIECE BY MARSHALL FRANTZ :: BOST ON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY I922 Tū THE NEW YQRK PUBLIC LIBRAR’ 58239A . LEN'-x AND º pºſ F4UM, BA'll". . . 1022 L. Copyright, 1922, By Little, Brown, AND CoMPANY. All rights reserved Published February, 1922 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA . CONTENTS I. WATCHING Eyes . - - - - 3 II. MoRNING's REveLATIONS . - . I6 III. PoinTING FINGERs - - - . 35 IV. The FIRST SECRET - - . 55 V. A NEw MYSTERY - - - . 73 VI. SEVERAL SURPRISES - 91 VII. In THE MoRNING MAIL - - . IO4 VIII. GROUND For SUSPICION - - ... I 20 IX. A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER . - . I 35 X. AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT . - . I 50 XI. A THEORY SHATTERED - - . 167 XII. MISSING – A MoTIVE . - - . I 82 XIII. A NEw ALLIANCE - -- - . 198 XIV. A PLAN THAT FAILED . - - . 214 XV. INDISPUTABLE Proof . - - . 230 XVI. AN OUTCOME UNExPECTED . - . 246 XVII. Two DiscoverIES . . . . 261 THE TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB — ） — — THE TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB CHAPTER I WATCHING EYES ON, on, through the night, there sped relentlessly a little roadster, its solitary occupant dust-begrimed and bearing marks of weariness as if from a long journey, yet apparently grimly determined to reach some fixed goal within a given time. / On several occasions as the car stopped while its occupant inquired the way, invariably the person addressed turned to stare wonderingly after the de- parting traveler. In the motorist's face was a strange, inscrutable expression, a look indicative of some fixed, definite purpose, almost a maniacal glare that seemed to portray an intense purpose to carry out some great resolve, cost what it might. Presently the car, after its occupant had once more inquired the directions, turned off the main 4 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB thoroughfare and began proceeding more slowly, as if there were need for caution over a less- traveled road. At the same hour, hardly half a mile distant, there crept through a narrow strip of woods that lined the Sound a sinister figure, intent on avoiding observation, a figure whose eyes were blazing with resentment, hate, despair, a figure moving swiftly yet silently, slipping noiselessly from cover behind one tree to another, but all the while persistently advancing toward a goal on the shore that was marked by a blaze of lights and the sound of merry voices. In the same locality, too, had one an all-seeing vision that could read the innermost hearts of men, there would have been noted two men, ostensibly friends, mingling in a reveling throng, their thoughts masked behind smiling faces; two men, – one possessed by a great fear, and the other by con- suming wrath. Yet surely no one, however prophetic his vision or however psychic his gifts, looking, on that peace- ful June night, at the pretty scene in our little club — the Beach Club, we call it — could possibly have WATCHING EYES 5 suspected the presence there of the grisly shadow of Tragedy as, entirely unobserved, it crept closer- and closer— and closer. The pleasant picture the clubhouse presented might have been duplicated at any one of the hun- dred summer colonies about New York, - a cluster of matrons, cool in sport clothes, ranged along the wall of the ballroom floor, placidly chatting of new crochet stitches, servants' wages, recent plays, en- gaged couples, thoroughly enjoying in their own mature fashion the tittle-tattle of a friendly com- munity, as they occasionally turned observant maternal glances to the dancing floor to see how their daughters were behaving and which of the men they were getting as dancing partners. In the card room adjoining, the club's four inveterates, Pressly Hart, Doctor Rhodes, John Dixon and Ed Man- ners, as usual, were wrangling over half-cent auc- tion, their rank swelled on this, the weekly dance night, by a sufficient number of husbands and fa- thers to make three other tables. A few more of the older men sat placidly smoking in the piazza rockers. And elsewhere — everywhere — was Youth — WATCHING EYES 7 camaraderie and pleasant chaffing only possible among tried acquaintances. “Poor old Bill,” a laughing girl taunted her part- ner — he was under thirty — “you men, as you get old, get dreadfully soft.” “This to me,” he retorted, “when I’ve already danced three times with you this sweltering night.” “I didn't mean that. That's harder on me than on you, for you never will learn to dance, but —” “But What?” She hesitated a trifle before answering. “None of you men seem to have any pep these days.” “Meaning which?” “I can't find a single man to get up at six to- morrow to play tennis with me.” “Try a married one. They’re easier.” “Don’t get fresh, Bill Tilt. You're not half as game as you used to be when we were kids to- gether.” “I’m a business man now. I haven't time for childish follies.” “To-morrow's Saturday,” she challenged him. “You don't go to business Saturdays.” 8 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Think how hard I work the other five days while you girls out here do nothing but play around all day and have a good time.” “A good time,” she echoed scornfully. “I wish you had a week of it — nothing to do all day long and not a man to talk to until the six-eighteen gets in. Please, Bill, won't you?” “Why pick on me?” he replied almost peevishly. “Rout Carew out to play with you.” “Paul Carew's an engaged man,” she replied, coloring prettily at this mention of her fiancé's name. “He has to work Saturdays. It becomes him to take life seriously, when he'll soon have a wife to support.” Mollie Manners’ engagement to Carew, an- nounced three weeks before, had been the summer's sensation in the colony. Carew was a comparative stranger. At the close of the war he had been brought to Rockmont as a guest by a fellow officer who had known him in France. Each summer since he had returned, living at the Inn in the vil- lage, enthusiastically joining in the sports, mingling freely with all the young people, in the course of the season being entertained at least once for dinner in WATCHING EYES 9 most of the houses, meanwhile carrying on his courtship of Mollie with such craft that no one had suspected his intention until the announcement of their betrothal. To most of them it had come as a complete sur- prise, and to Bill Tilt as a shock. He felt that he had been or was about to be deprived of a good playmate. Sometimes, when he was alone and began to think about it, he wished he had proposed to Mollie himself. Life without her, he felt, would be strangely lonesome, almost unbearable. “If I were engaged to you,” he snapped, “even if I did have to go to business, I'd get up at six for you.” “Paul wanted to,” she answered proudly, “but I wouldn’t let him.” “What's the big idea, anyhow?” growled Tilt. “Why this early stuff?” “It’s the tournament. I'm just crazy to get in a lot of practise and surprise everybody. I'm out for the cup in the ladies' singles. Besides, it's lovely and cool early in the morning, and we'll have the courts all to ourselves. Please, Bill, won't you — pretty please?” 1o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB Into her great dark eyes came a pleading look, a soft, alluring look that Tilt had never been able to withstand, and her concluding phrase, the “pretty please” brought back to his mind with a rush viv- idly pleasant memories of their merry times to- gether — long before Carew had come — when they were just boy and girl together. “All right, all right!” he cried, as the music stopped, holding up his hands in mock token of sur- render, as the couples about them applauded vigor- ously for an encore. “Remember, six sharp,” she warned him, as they stood waiting a moment. The music started up again. Tilt, lowering his hands, was about to encircle her waist again, when Carew cut in and swept her away. “I’ll be waiting on the courts for you,” she called back smilingly over her shoulder, as Tilt, re- sentful and disgruntled, abandoned the dancing and sought solace in a cigarette in solitude on the veran- dah. On went the dancing, the gossip, the bridge, and closer and yet closer crept the sinister shadow of tragedy, still with no warning of its coming unless WATCHING EYES 11 some one might have observed, peering furtively in from a back window — a window that looked out on a sort of court where the cars were parked — two frightened eyes that roved the ballroom as if in search of something or some one. Presently, if any one had been watching closely, they might have seen the eyes stop and tighten and have noticed creeping into them a strange set expression of — what was it — hate or hopelessness. But only for a fleeting instant were the watching eyes visible. As quickly as they had appeared, they vanished again, the outer darkness swallowing up their owner before any one of the dancers had noticed the occurrence. Otherwise there was no hint of the unusual, no foreshadowing of the terrible, no warning of the dreadful, mysterious tragedy that before the morn- ing would cast its gloom on all the merry dancers, would wreck the happiness of some, would shatter lifelong friendships and would spread its poison through the whole community. Unconscious of the sword above their heads, the merry assemblage danced on. Peace, contentment and the joy of living was theirs. Even from the 12 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB faces of the men at the card tables the evening's pastime seemed to have wiped away the worry lines of business cares. So far as any one could see, it was a perfect picture of a happy, carefree com- munity. All too soon came twelve o'clock and the good- night dance. The matrons, for the most part trust- fully leaving their daughters to be escorted home by boy friends, gathering up their wraps, invaded the card room in a body to stand firmly united against husbandly please for “just one more rubber.” In a very few minutes the club entrance was thronged with the departing and noisy with merry “good nights.” Paul Carew, as usual, was waiting for Mollie as she emerged from the cloakroom, and many a glance was bestowed on them as they stood there together. Physically they seemed an ideal couple for mating. Dark-eyed, slender, her masses of auburn hair al- ways were kept trim and shining. Slim-ankled and dainty, her bared arms, softly rounded though they were, had the brown of the athlete, and her pretty face glowed with health and good nature, though her square chin indicated that on occasion she could WATCHING EYES 13 display a mind and will of her own. Generally she gave the impression of being a tall girl, but the man beside her towered a good six inches above her. If ever there had been a tendency on his part to slouch over, it had been remedied by his army service. He stood there straight and erect, blond as she was dark. His well-fitting dinner coat gave to his shoulders perhaps undeserved breadth, and a captious critic might have considered his lips a trifle loose, with- out being able to dispute the fact that he was a handsome man. Though he was undoubtedly Amer- ican-born, there was something about his face — perhaps his rather large, aquiline nose, perhaps the expression of his gray-green eyes — that gave most persons on first meeting him a feeling that some- where in his pedigree was a considerable strain of alien blood. At any rate he appeared well-bred and cultured, and it was generally understood in the colony that he was an electrical engineer, who after Amherst had taken a course at Cornell which he had completed just before entering the army. Apparently, too, he had some means besides his profession, for he lived comfortably and kept a car. Mollie Manners, too, the colony knew, had a 14 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB small income of her own, so altogether the match was considered a suitable one. “Mollie, dear,” Carew whispered, drawing her a little apart from the others, “would you mind it very much if I didn't go home with you to-night — if you went on with the family?” “What is it?” she cried, scanning his face solicitously. “Are you ill?” “Not at all,” he laughed reassuringly. “You’re Sure?” “Quite. It's just some business.” “Business at this hour of the night!” her eyes sought the clock. “It’s long after twelve.” “It’s some papers,” he explained nervously, “something I have to get fixed up before morning. Something —” he hesitated for just a second, “something I promised to attend to.” “Oh,” she said, “ of course that is different. I don't mind in the least. Only, Paul dear, don't stay up too late.” “Don’t worry,” he replied, “I shan't.” Perplexedly her eyes sought his. Despite his reassuring words, there was something in his man- ner, a nervousness, something—she could hardly WATCHING EYES 15 describe it — that seemed strange and different about him. She feared that he might be feeling ill and was keeping it from her. Or perhaps it was some business worry? What could it be? It was unlike him to be upset about business, yet she noticed that his hand as he clasped her was trembling and clammy. Once again she raised her eyes question- ingly to his. Unmindful of the crowd about them, with an ac- cepted lover's daring, he bent and kissed her lightly on the lips, then springing lightly into his car, dashed away in the direction of the Inn, both he and Mollie utterly unconscious that the eyes of at least three persons who had witnessed their parting kiss, two of them in the clubhouse, and a third person hidden in the black shadows outside, had sent after Carew, departing, frowning, unfriendly, bitter glances. And closer, and still closer, crept Tragedy. CHAPTER II MORNING'S REVELATIONS ALL too early for Tilt came Saturday morning. Returning from the club dance shortly after mid- night, he had retired immediately, but not to sleep. The thought that he must be up again by six was far from being a soporific, and besides all through the hours he had been haunted and harassed by visions of Mollie. There kept recurring to his mind, distastefully and annoyingly, the picture she had made in their last dance together, a picture rudely shattered by the masterful, proprietary way in which Paul Carew had swept her away from him. “Damn Carew,” he muttered to himself, “I wish he never had turned up here.” Hitherto Tilt, with no thought of matrimony, with no conscious feeling of love toward his old playmate, had been content to drift along in the pleasant sunshine of her companionship. Now, as the prospect loomed closer and closer of her be- coming another man's wife, he realized, with poign- MORNING'S REVELATIONS 17 ant regret, that he loved Mollie Manners, that he always had loved her. He was in a savage mood as he left his home and hurried along the beach toward the courts, swinging his racquet viciously at the nodding daisies along his path. Yet it was hard to be ill-tempered on such a morning as this with the prospects of having two hours alone with Mollie. As the cool sea air, with its pleasant, elusive tang, struck his face and filled his lungs, his mood quickly softened. Mollie was right, he decided. It was wonderful in the early morning. The sun, coming up behind Little Island, was cutting a golden path across the Sound's incoming tide. The sea birds, busy with breakfast, were fluttering about everywhere, a horde of hungry gulls, like scout planes, watching each wave crest for floating dainties, croaking their dis- satisfaction as they sailed along, while in the shal- lows of the cove the silent cranes hopped about with grotesque dignity, seeking unwary fish. From the leafy shelters of the woods near by came the rau- cous notes of the crows, the trill of robins and the mischievous cries of catbirds. Tilt was hardly five minutes in reaching the 18 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB courts, and as he arrived he looked about with a feeling of triumph. Early as it was, apparently he had been the first to arrive. He hurried on a little farther to a place commanding a view of Lloyd's Point, confidently expecting to see Mollie racing toward him, but she was nowhere in sight. For a moment he felt puzzled. It was not at all like her to be late. Some girls he knew would have con- sidered it a great joke to date a man for six o'clock and then keep him waiting for half an hour, but Mollie was not that sort. Brought up among boys, it was her custom always to be prompt in keeping engagements. It occurred to him then that she might already have arrived and be in the clubhouse getting her racquet or putting on her tennis shoes. Sometimes in the years gone by, when they used to have these early engagements more frequently, he recalled that she had been in the habit of stopping at the care- taker's cottage for the key and opening up the club- house. Probably that was where she was now. As he turned back and approached the building, he saw what he had not noticed before, — that the door was standing ajar. His conclusions thus veri- * MORNING's REVELATIONS 19 fied, he started for the steps, his lips shaping them- selves into a cheery call to announce his arrival, but he stopped short in his tracks. From somewhere — it seemed to him from within the clubhouse — there came a shrill, unforgettable, prolonged scream, like the cry of some person or animal in mortal agony, a terrifying, unearthly sound, such as it seemed hardly possible for any hu- man being to make. What was it? What did it mean? What could have happened? Bewildered by the amazing scream, he stopped for a second and stood there listening, half expect- ing to hear the cry repeated. Strangely enough, at first no thought of Mollie came into his head. The cry he had heard had not sounded in the least like her voice, and at any rate he knew that she was not the sort of girl given to shrieking or screaming. He was not even sure that the sound had come from the clubhouse. There was a muffled quality about it as if it might have come from some distance away, perhaps from one of the yachts at anchor a quarter of a mile away. But Mollie — where was she? 20 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB She must be somewhere about, probably in the clubhouse. He must find her at once. If she had heard that scream, it undoubtedly would have alarmed her. Suppose something had happened to her, something dreadful? With his heart in his throat, he took the steps two at a time and made for the open door, all sorts of wild imaginings filling his brain. If Mollie were in there, who could be with her? He knew the building now was untenanted at night. Two weeks ago the steward had been discharged for stealing, and his place had not yet been filled. Old Hodder, who looked after the boats, kept the key at his shack down on the beach. The last to leave at night snapped the spring lock on the door, and the first to arrive stopped at old Hodder's and got the key. Striving vainly to conjecture what might have happened, with his alarm for Mollie's safety increasing, he made for the door, but before he reached it he heard steps — some one coming to- ward him — some one running — running fast. In- stinctively his muscles stiffened, and his fists clinched. If any one was in there, if any one had harmed or had frightened Mollie - º MORNING'S REVELATIONS 21 . It was Mollie herself. She dashed out of the place as if all the devils in hell were after her. She was neither shrieking nor crying, but her breath was coming in short, quick gasps that seemed almost to choke her, and in her eyes was the most fear stricken look that Tilt had eVer Seen. “Mollie,” he cried, putting out his arms, “what's happened? What's the matter?” She seemed not even to have seen him. With her eyes staring, with that look of dreadful horror still in them, she ran right on, straight past him as he attempted to seize her. “Mollie!” he cried again, but she paid no atten- tion and kept on running, running as fast as she could in the direction of her own home. Puzzled beyond measure, utterly at a loss to understand what could have terrified her so, Tilt dashed after her. Although in his college days he had been on the track team and even now prided himself on his speed, run as fast as he could he was unable to catch up with her. She ran madly on and on, making no sound except that queer, choking gasp. He was just behind her as she reached home 22 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB and dashed up the front steps and through the door into the living room. Seeming even in her hysteria to realize that she was at home and safe, she gave a little cry—something that sounded to Tilt like “Mother”— and fell in a senseless heap to the floor. It had not seemed to Tilt that they had made much noise as they entered the house, but there must have been more than he imagined for as he bent over Mollie, Kit — the Terrible Kit — Mollie's younger sister, came flying down the stairs in her pyjamas, her bobbed black hair all tousled from the pillow. She stopped short on the landing as she saw Tilt and her sister lying on the floor, let out a shriek and dashed back upstairs. In half a second the whole house was in commotion. Mrs. Manners and Mollie's brother Ed and the servants, in various stages of deshabille, ran into the living room. Mrs. Manners was the only one who seemed to have kept her head. Without saying a word, she got a pillow under her daughter and began trying with brandy and smelling salts to revive her. The others, crowding around the bewildered Tilt, all began ask- ing at once what had happened. * MORNING'S REVELATIONS 23 The Terrible Kit, reappearing in a kimono, pushed past the others and shaking her fist in Tilt's face, tragically screamed out: “What have you done to my sister?” Tilt, as soon as he could get them somewhat calmed down, told them all he knew about it, which of course was practically nothing. “Mollie has been badly frightened,” said Mrs. Manners, looking up from her task. “She must have seen somebody or something in the clubhouse. Bill, why don't you and Ed go down there and in- vestigate? Some tramps may have got into the clubhouse. But, Ed, before you go, I wish you'd telephone Doctor Rhodes to come over.” Ed, still in his bathrobe, went at once to the 'phone, which was in an alcove just off the living room, where every one could hear what he said. He had some trouble in getting the number, as invari- ably is the case when you try to get a surburban number in the early morning, and when he did, they gathered from what he was saying that Doctor Rhodes was not at home. At that both Mrs. Man- ners and Tilt exchanged surprised glances, for Rhodes had been at the club the night before. MORNING'S REVELATIONS 25 “If you boys will carry her upstairs,” said her mother, “she'll be better off in bed.” “Wait a second till I slip on some clothes,” said Ed, as they complied with Mrs. Manners' request, “and we'll run down and see what's wrong at the club.” A moment later, just as he and Tilt was starting off, the Terrible Kit, still in her kimono, came rush- ing downstairs after them. “You go back,” her brother commanded sternly. “There's no telling what we may find. It's no place for a kid.” “She’s as much my sister as she is yours,” said Kit stubbornly, “and I have a right to know what happened to her.” There seemed to be no way of stopping the deter- mined young flapper without appealing to her mother, and they did not wish to add to Mrs. Manners’ troubles just then; but Tilt put in a word of advice. “Better stay home, Kit. We may find a bunch of tough tramps down there.” “Who’s afraid of tramps,” scoffed Kit, “when she has two big men along to protect her.” 26 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Do you think it was tramps?” asked Ed of Tilt. “Some vagrant might have taken a notion to camp in the clubhouse.” “It could happen easily enough, but I doubt if we find anything at all. Girls get like that some- times, sort of timid and Scary, all upset about noth- ing at all. Mollie, alone in the clubhouse at that hour of the morning, probably thought she saw something or thought she heard something and went off into hysterics.” “No,” Tilt defended her warmly, “Mollie isn't that sort at all. She's as cool headed as a man and has a lot of nerve. Remember that time I was in the motor smash-up with her, she never turned a hair — didn't even cry out when they crashed into us.” “’Sright,” said Kit, “Mollie's just like me. We're neither of us afraid of anything.” Nevertheless, as they approached the clubhouse, the Terrible Kit sidled shyly up to Tilt and slipped her hand into his as if to give herself courage. Even the two men, while certainly not frightened, approached the little building with a MORNING'S REVELATIONS 27 nervous air of expectation, perhaps of premoni- tion. They found the door standing wide open, just as it had been when Mollie ran out, and together the three of them went in. Right at the entrance was the reception room, such a room as is common to all small clubs of this sort, — mission furniture, some sporting prints and standing about on shelves some “maybe they are silver” cups and trophies. Nothing was out of place in this room that any of them could observe. At the left the dancing floor was visible in its entirety through an uncurtained archway. On their right a passageway led to the lockers, and on one side of this was a big room used as a card room. Across the corridor from the card room were two smaller rooms, one — now locked— used as the steward's sleeping quarters when they had a steward and the other as a meeting room for the club's governors. “Let’s go down toward the women's lockers,” suggested Tilt. “That's probably the direction Mollie took as she came in.” “Right,” said Ed, leading the way with Tilt and Kit close at his heels. 28 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB They glanced into the card room but there was no one there, and they were hurrying on down toward the lockers, when Tilt felt Kit's hand tighten con- vulsively on his. “Oh, look!” she breathed in a horrified whisper. Both men stopped short and turned at once to peer in the direction of her frightened glance. “My God,” cried Ed Manners, “what's this?” He turned to his sister and seizing her almost roughly by the shoulders thrust her back. “Get out of here,” he commanded. “This is no place for you.” “I won't,” said Kit stubbornly, even though her face was white, and the hand with which she was clutching Tilt's was trembling violently. “It’s Doctor Rhodes.” At a table in the second of the smaller rooms off the corridor was Walter Rhodes, sitting, or rather sprawling grotesquely. His head rested on the table, and his arms dangled loosely, lifelessly at his sides, while on the floor, almost at his feet, lay a revolver. “It doesn't seem possible,” cried Ed, “but it certainly looks as if Rhodes had killed himself.” - MORNING'S REVELATIONS 29 “No wonder Mollie had hysterics,” said Tilt, picturing to himself the shock it must have been to her when she discovered the body, for Rhodes had been one of her dearest friends. For a moment the three of them stood, spell- bound with horror, looking into the room. There was nothing to indicate that there had been a fight or a struggle, nothing to hint of the presence of an intruder, except for the fact that a window on the Sound side stood open. Whoever was last to leave the club generally closed all the windows, but this one could easily have been overlooked, or for that matter Rhodes himself might have opened it before he took his seat at the table. “I can't believe that it's suicide,” said Tilt firmly. “There's some mystery about this. Rhodes isn't the sort to have killed himself. He could not have had any motive. He was in splendid health, doing big work and making plenty of money. What reason could he have had P” “Who knows,” said Manners. “Perhaps it was SO1116 WOman 33 “Hardly at his age. He was well over fifty.” Manners stepped into the room and, picking up 3o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB the revolver, broke it, and exhibited it to his com- panions. “I guess that settles it,” he said. “See, there's one bullet discharged.” “I can't believe it,” Tilt repeated. “Rhodes wasn't the sort. There was nothing of the quitter about him.” “If he didn't kill himself, how else do you ac- count for it?” “I don’t know.” “At any rate, we've got to do something — no- tify the police, or the coroner or somebody.” “What's the matter with letting Pressly Hart attend to that? He's president of the club.” “That's a good idea. We'll 'phone him.” As he spoke, Manners lifted the doctor's head and straightened his body back in the chair. “Don’t,” Tilt warned him. “We ought to leave everything just as it is until the authorities arrive.” “Of course, but what I did will not hurt anything or destroy any clues, if there are any. It seemed a shame to leave him in that uncomfortable position.” “What's that?” the excited, shrill voice of the Terrible Kit interrupted. . MORNING'S REVELATIONS 31 In their excitement over the tragedy, both of the men had forgotten about her. She was still stand- ing in the doorway. Her bright eyes blazing with excitement, she was pointing to the spot on the table where the doctor's head had been lying. There was a piece of paper lying there with something written on it. Eagerly Tilt picked it up and together he and Manners examined it. It was a sheet torn from one of Rhodes's own prescription pads, and on it in the doctor's handwriting were these words: WALTER REIODES, M. D. B. for tº ºv. 4…" The writing ended abruptly, the line of the last 32 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB letter jerking sharply up as if a bullet might have stopped his hand as he wrote. What could it mean? Would a man stop in the middle of a sentence to kill himself? There was bewilderment in the puzzled glances the two men exchanged. The find- ing of the unfinished note had put an entirely dif- ferent complexion on the tragedy. Into the mind of both came what his housekeeper had said, about some one having telephoned him after midnight and his having gone out. Manifestly he must have come here to the club to meet some one, – some one for whom he had waited. Whom had he expected to meet? Was it a man or a woman? Could it have been possible that Rhodes, all unsuspected, was involved in an affair, and that he had been lured here and shot down by some jealous husband? Or had there been some one who had plotted to take his life from some other motive, – robbery, revenge, perhaps from sheer madness through brooding over some fancied wrong. Carefully Manners laid the little scrap of paper back in the exact spot from which Tilt had picked it up. . º MORNING'S REVELATIONS 33 “It’s too deep for me,” he said. “I guess we had better telephone Hart.” Together the three of them left the room, return- ing down the corridor to the telephone in the recep- tion hall. As Tilt was calling up, Manners turned to his sister. “Look here, Kit,” he said, “you get out of here quick. The first thing you know, you'll be dragged into court in a murder case. Anyhow, in a very few minutes there'll be a lot of people here, and you don't want them to catch you looking like that.” It is hard to say which of his arguments it was that appealed to the youngster, but at any rate she reluctantly withdrew. After talking over the 'phone with Hart, Manners and Tilt, left alone, re- turned once more along the corridor to where the body lay. “What do you make of it?” asked Tilt. “It certainly is mysterious. Looks like murder.” “But who would want to murder Walter Rhodes?” “I give it up.” “It seems to me,” said Tilt thoughtfully, “if we can find out who it was that telephoned him late 34 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB last night, if we can discover to whom the message he was writing was addressed, if we can find out for whom he was waiting there, we'll come pretty near locating the man that killed him.” “Or the woman,” suggested Manners. “What makes you —” began Tilt, but his question died in his throat. As they talked, they had come once more to the door of the room where the body was. At their first glance within they had halted abruptly, gaping at the table in stupefied astonishment. The paper — the unfinished message that Man- ners had laid so carefully back in its place — the paper that both had considered so important a clue to the murderer of Walter Rhodes — had vanished. CHAPTER III POINTING FINGERS THE inquest was on. Apart from the morbid, curious excited throng of summer residents, of vil- lagers, of officials, already gathered on the dancing floor of the club, paying little heed to any of them, as he leaned against a pillar of the porch outside, was old Hodder, a far away look in his eyes. A score of things about him marked him for a follower of the sea, – his wind-beaten face, his shirt wide open, revealing his tanned hairy neck, his up-rolled sleeves, the sea symbols tattooed boldly on both forearms, the hitch of his trousers, the roll of his walk, the tilt of his cap. Indeed, with his long, gray, tobacco-stained mustache and his beady black eyes, given another setting, it would not have been in the least difficult to imagine him as a pirate, an adventurer, but to thoughtless Rockmont, now as always he was just “Old Hodder who looks after the boats.” 36 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB He was muttering to himself as he stood there. “It must have been her that got him. She vowed she would. It must have been her.” Within the clubhouse the inquest proceeded, the County physician, Doctor Dooner, presiding with bustling dignity. One of those incompetent medi- cal men, too lazy or too careless to build up a paying practise, he had turned to politics as a way out of his rut, and now keenly alive to the possibilities of publicity for himself in such a mysterious affair as this, was enjoying to the utmost the part he had to play in it. The two most important witnesses, Manners and Tilt, had been informed by him that they would be the first ones called, and already they were sitting uneasily in chairs in the front row facing the jury. Although it was now nearly twelve, more than five hours since they had 'phoned the news to Pressly Hart, they had hardly had a minute to themselves. The celerity with which the news had spread had amazed them both. Close on Hart's heels had come the curious throng, with the village police chief — he was Smithers, the grocer— everybody, crowding around them, demanding over and over T POINTING FINGERS 37 again to be told about the discovery of Walter Rhodes's body. By tacit understanding, neither of them had mentioned Mollie's part in the affair, both devoutly hoping that her name could be kept entirely out of it. It wasn’t until Doctor Dooner began impaneling the jury that they had had the opportunity for a quiet word together. “Bill,” whispered Manners, “what did you do with that paper — that message that Rhodes was writing?” “Me!” cried Tilt, in an astonished whisper. “I didn't touch it again. I thought sure you had it.” Appraisingly, almost suspiciously, they studied each other's faces. Hitherto the best of friends, enjoying the mutual confidence in each other that long years of pleasant acquaintance invariably brings, the grisly figure of murder had risen between them, spreading on either side suspicion, distrust. Simultaneously into the minds of each had flashed the thought that the other had secreted the paper, fearing it might involve or incriminate some one he knew. “I didn't take it,” said Manners. “I put it back 38 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB in exactly the spot where it was when you picked it up.” “Where is it then?” “Perhaps it blew out the window.” “There wasn't the suspicion of a breeze.” “Then,” said Manners decisively, “some one went into that room and picked up that paper and destroyed it or hid it. There was no one there but us two.” “Didn't you take it?” “Didn't you?” “Mr. Edward Manners to the stand,” they heard Doctor Dooner's voice call out. “Look here,” whispered Tilt hurriedly, “if we tell about that paper and can't produce it, it'll look mighty queer.” Manners nodded understandingly and moved for- ward to testify. Simply and directly he told the story that he already had told many times that morning. He and Tilt had gone into the clubhouse about six that morning. On their way to the lock- ers they had happened to glance into the directors' room. Sitting at the table, stone dead, with a re- volver at his feet, was Walter Rhodes. The body POINTING FINGERS 39 was cold, showing that the shooting must have taken place some hours before. Tilt, following, corroborated Manners' story in every detail, Tilt, too, being careful to make no men- tion of the fact that either of the Manners girls had been in the clubhouse that morning. As he was completing his testimony, he was amazed to see coming into the room Mollie Manners herself. Her mother was with her, looking anxious and dis- tressed, but Mollie, hatless and garbed in a becoming sport suit, with the quick recuperative power of youth, showed hardly a sign of her recent attack of hysteria and seemed as cool and composed as ever. “That's all you can tell us then,” said Doctor Dooner. Tilt nodded uncomfortably. “As I understand you,” said the examiner, “you say that you and Mr. Manners were the first to dis- cover the body. How did you happen to visit this building at that early hour?” Tilt was mentally floundering, trying to think of some answer, when Mollie's voice cut in: “Doctor Dooner, I can explain that. It was I who first found the body.” 4o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB The eyes of every one in the room turned in amazement in the girl's direction, while both Tilt and her brother shot angry glances at her, trying to warn her to keep quiet. Her mother, too, laid her hand restrainingly on the girl's arm, but she went calmly on: “Doctor Rhodes was a very good friend of mine. I have known him as long as I can remem- ber. If anything I can tell will help find his mur- derer, I am going to tell it.” “His murderer!” exclaimed Doctor Dooner. “Don’t you know that he is supposed to have killed himself?” “He was murdered,” said Mollie calmly. “He would never have committed suicide.” “Miss Manners,” said Doctor Dooner, “will you please take the stand and tell us everything you know about the affair. Tell us just what hap- pened.” - “I had a date,” Mollie began, “at six o'clock to play tennis with Bill, that is, with Mr. Tilt. The evening before, so that I could get into the club- house to get my racquet and shoes, I had gotten the keys from old Hodder -> POINTING FINGERS 41 “Who is Hodder?” “The caretaker. I got here shortly before six and unlocked the door; I was going down the cor- ridor toward the lockers when I saw Doctor Rhodes. I didn’t realize at first what had happened. It was hardly light enough in the room to see distinctly, and my first thought was that he had fallen asleep there and had slept all night in a chair. I called to him, and he didn't answer me. Then I thought that per- haps he was ill, but still suspecting nothing serious, I ran over to him and touched him on the cheek.” She stopped abruptly, and a curious shiver shook her at the recollection of the shock she had received. “What happened then?” “I’d never seen a dead person before,” she said, her voice sinking almost to a whisper. “When I touched his cheek and found it cold, it was terrible. I got frightened, terribly frightened, and I guess I must have shrieked and run home.” “Did you see any one in the clubhouse?” “No.” “Nor hear any one?” “No. I don't remember anything that happened after I touched him. I must have become hyster- 42 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB ical, I guess. But I am certain that before that I neither saw nor heard any one in the clubhouse.” “That will do,” said the examiner, as he excused her, turning sternly toward Manners and Tilt. “Young gentlemen, you will please remember that justice is not to be trifled with. While your mo- tive in suppressing the fact that Miss Manners found the body is perhaps understandable, such actions cannot be tolerated. Is Mr. Hodder here?” The chief of police found the old boatman still standing on the porch outside and brought him in. “What is your name?” the examiner asked. “Hodder ” he hesitated as if making an effort to recall the name by which he had been christened, adding after a second – “Malachi Hodder.” “Where do you live?” “Over yonder.” He pointed out the window to his home, a tumble- down shack just off the anchorage. “Miss Manners says that she got a key to the clubhouse from you last night. Is that statement ~ true?” He nodded. POINTING FINGERS 43 “You let her have the key?” “Sure I did.” “Did any one else have keys?” “Two of 'em — him " — he pointed toward Pressly Hart, “and the Commander.” “The Commander,” said Doctor Dooner, puzzled. “Whom do you mean by “the Commander’?” “Doctor Rhodes.” “Why do you call him “the Commander’?” “Him and me was in the navy together; that's why, sir. He was Commander Rhodes then.” That this statement was news to most of the summer colonists was evident from the glances of surprise that were exchanged. Well as most of them knew, or thought they knew Doctor Rhodes, few of them were aware that he had been in the navy, and old Hodder had been a club fixture so long that the circumstance of his coming there had been forgotten. “Did any one else have keys?” “Just them two.” “Your cottage is within hearing distance of the club. Did you hear anything unusual going on last night — say after midnight?” 46 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Why was the steward discharged?” “Rhodes caught him grafting in buying supplies. Rhodes was our treasurer.” “Who was this steward?” “Gus Pincus, his name was. I don't know much about him.” “Has he been seen about here recently?” “He was in my store only yesterday,” volunteered Police Chief Smithers; “cussing about Doc Rhodes, he was, too.” “Did he make any threats?” “I wouldn't go so far as to say that. He was just kicking about Rhodes not wanting to give him a chance to make a living.” “Do you know where he is now?” “He said he had a job at the Meadowmount Club.” The members of the club grouped about the room looked at each other blankly. Gus for three years had been their steward, Gus, a good-natured, weak sort of chap. It was easy enough to believe of him that he had done some petty pilfering, but Gus a murderer! They could not imagine it. POINTING FINGERS 47 “While of course,” said Dooner judicially, “there is no evidence to involve this man, it might be well to locate him and investigate his whereabouts last night after midnight. Are there any other wit- nesses?” “Here's Mrs. Grady, the doctor's housekeeper,” said Smithers. It was with difficulty that any sort of a state- ment could be dragged out of the old woman, so upset was she over the tragedy. Finally Dooner and Smithers between them managed to get her calmed down sufficiently to tell about the doctor hav- ing been called from his home by telephone some- time after midnight. “Who answered the 'phone?” “Meself, bad luck the day.” “Who Was it?” “”Twas a queer, husky voice.” “What did he say?” “I disremember; something about wanting to speak to Doctor Rhodes.” “Did he give any name?” “He did not, bad cess to him.” “What did you do?” 48 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “I called the doctor. He was in his study, read- ing, belike.” “Did you recognize the voice? Was it any one you know?” “It had a quare, lusty sound, though I couldn't be saying whose voice it was.” “Was it Gus Pincus's?” “Him — the dirty thief – it was not.” “But you don't know whose it was?” “Woe's me, I do not. If I heard it again, I'd know it, but wirra, wirra, what's to become of me with him lying there kilt? Oh, wirra, wirra, God save his soul, a fine gentleman he was.” Weeping, the old woman was led from the stand. Doctor Dooner asked if there were any other wit- nesses. For a moment there was silence. Tilt, slouched down in his seat, with a puzzled expression on his face, was trying to measure the value of the evidence that old Hodder had given and to fit it to the facts brought out by the medical examination. If Rhodes had been killed with a rifle fired from the end of the porch, it looked to Tilt as if his murder was the outcome of a deliberate plot, as if the as- sassin, undoubtedly the man who had telephoned POINTING FINGERS 49 him, had lured him to the club for the express pur- pose of killing him. But what could have been the motive, a motive impelling enough to bring about this cold-blooded murder? Suddenly out of the stillness that had fallen on the assemblage a shrill voice rang out. It was the Terrible Kit's. “Bill, aren't you going to tell them about the paper — the message Doctor Rhodes was writ- ing?” If a bomb had exploded in the clubhouse, it could hardly have made a greater sensation than Kit's question. Doctor Dooner, deciding at once that both Manners and Tilt were deliberately withholding important evidence, after one wrathful glance in their direction, demanded: “Who is this young lady? What does she know about this case?” - “She is my sister,” said Manners, looking at Kit as if he would like to have spanked her then and there; but returning his glance with a scornful look, Kit took the witness stand and glibly told of the finding of the message written on a prescription blank. $o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “And what became of that piece of paper?” asked Doctor Dooner accusingly. “The last I saw of it, my brother put it back on the table; then he sent me home, and I didn't see any more.” “Mr. Manners,” said Dooner severely, “will you please explain why you said nothing about this all- important clue?” “ Because,” faltered Manners, “when Tilt and I came back there, after 'phoning Hart, the scrap of paper had vanished.” “How do you account for its vanishing?” “I don't.” “Why did you not tell about this paper when you were first examined?” Ed Manners shot an appealing glance in Tilt's direction as if he expected his friend to help him out, but Bill, his tall ungainly figure slouched down in his seat, refused to meet his eye. “I don't know,” said Manners lamely. “I felt that it would sound fishy to tell about this paper when we were unable to produce it.” “Could your sister — your sister Kit — have taken it?” - 52 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB answer me this question: Have you any opinion or suspicion, or knowledge as to whom this message Doctor Rhodes was writing was addressed?” “No, sir. Absolutely none.” “Miss Manners — Miss Mollie Manners — who first found the body, has testified that Rhodes was a friend, a very good friend of hers. Did the thought not come into your mind when you found that paper that the message might have been addressed to her — to Miss Mollie Manners?” “Oh, my God, no,” Tilt shouted. “Such a thought never entered my head. That was utterly impossible.” “Tell me the truth,” persisted Dooner relent- lessly. “Wasn't that the real reason you and her brother entered into a conspiracy to suppress this evidence?” “Certainly not.” “What was your motive then?” “We hadn't any,” cried Tilt. “The paper had disappeared. We could not account for it. We de- cided to say nothing about it for the present. That's all there was to it.” “Humph,” snapped Dooner disbelievingly. 54 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB easily in the chair, then turning to give a defiant glance at Tilt, he said slowly: “I thought that Mr. Tilt for some reason of his own had hidden or destroyed that paper.” CHAPTER IV THE FIRST SECRET THERE were just two passengers for the Inn on the two-sixteen train that afternoon, — Paul Carew and a slender, boyish-looking stranger with intense eyes. On the way up from the station the taxi- driver, with garrulous delight, told them of the strange affair at the club. “Of course,” he said, “after what was brung out at the inquest, there ain't a doubt in any one's mind but that the girl is mixed up in it.” Carew's face went white. With a look of in- credulous horror in his eyes, he asked: “What girl do you mean?” “The Manners girl — Mollie Manners,” the man blundered on. “My God!” cried Carew. “That's impossible. It isn’t true.” The stranger beside him turned a searching glance at him, as if puzzled to account for his vehemence. 56 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Of course,” said the taxi-driver hesitantly, feeling perhaps from the manner in which Carew received his statement that he had gone a little too far, “of course, I ain't saying that she done it her- self. I'm only repeating what everybody else is say- ing about her. And as for that, there's always a woman at the bottom of everything.” “But it couldn't have been Miss Manners,” Carew protested, his face still white and set. “I know it couldn't.” Taking it that his veracity had been attacked, the taxi-driver indignantly sought to bolster up his position. “What for then,” he demanded, “did her brother and Tilt try so hard to keep her name out of it? Why did they keep so quiet at first about the mes- sage the doctor was writing when he was shot? And who was he writing it to? She admitted on the stand he was a very good friend of hers. What was she doing at the club all by herself at that hour of the morning? I tell you there's something fishy about the stories her and her brother told. They’re keeping something back. Maybe Miss Manners is mixed up in it and maybe she ain’t. I’m not say- THE FIRST SECRET 57 ing. All I'm saying is that the girl knows more than she's telling.” “She had nothing to do with it. She couldn't have,” insisted Carew warmly. As the taxi drew up at the Inn, he sprang out hurriedly, and without waiting to wash or change, ran to the garage for his roadster and started at once for his fiancée's home. His companion, stand- ing for a moment on the porch of the Inn, watched his actions with unconcealed interest, and when he turned to go to the desk, his brows were drawn in a pucker as if he was trying to puzzle out why Carew had been so certain about Miss Manners. His man- ner was abstracted as he wrote his name on the register: “Richard Devan, New York City.” “Staying for some time, Mr. Devan?” the clerk asked, as he reached for a key. “Yes,” he said, “for several days, probably — perhaps for several weeks.” Meanwhile Carew's arrival at the Manners home had been anticipated a few minutes by Bill Tilt. When the inquest had been adjourned with the customary verdict, “by a person or persons un- 58 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB known,” Tilt, like the rest of the colony, had gone home for luncheon, but now, seated on the Manners porch with the family, he was having it out with Ed for having practically accused him of secreting Rhodes's unfinished message. “I didn't intend to let you in for it,” Ed was try- ing to explain. “The disappearance of the pesky thing got me all balled up. I knew Kit couldn't have taken it, for I’d had my eye on her all the time. - I knew I hadn't taken it myself. There wasn't any one else there. It must have been you.” “But,” cried the aggrieved Tilt, “what on earth would I do it for?” “I admit that puzzled me,” said Ed, “but if you didn't take it, who did?” “Maybe,” interjected the Terrible Kit, who, be- ing a movie fan, was up on mysterious crimes, “maybe there was some one else in the clubhouse, some one we didn't see. Perhaps the murderer still was lurking near the scene of his dastardly crime.” She delivered the last phrase as though she was fairly gloating over the affair, and her mother gave her a reproving glance as Tilt said thoughtfully: “I wonder if Kit is right. Somebody might have THE FIRST SECRET 59 been hiding in there. After we found the body, we didn't look about for anything else.” “There are a lot of nooks and alcoves,” Ed ad- mitted, “where some one could have hidden.” Just at this junction Carew drove up. His face was black with rage as he ran up the steps. “How dared you bring Mollie into this?” he fairly shrieked at her brother. “It could not be helped,” Ed started to explain, but the wrathful young man would not listen, and turning to Tilt, began hauling him, too, over the coals, for his part in the affair. “And you, Tilt,” he raved. “You have always professed to be a friend of hers.” “It was that fool Doctor Dooner that did it,” the Terrible Kit burst out valiantly. “Both the boys did the best they could to keep both Mollie and me out of it.” “Really, Paul,” said Mollie calmly, “there's nothing to get excited about. Everybody who knows us knows that none of us could have had anything to do with it.” “Is that so?” exclaimed her lover sarcastically. “You ought to have heard the taxi-driver. He told THE FIRST SECRET 61 determined to do all I can to help find Walter Rhodes's murderer.” “I forbid your having anything more to do with it,” cried Carew. Mollie's chin went forward with an aggressive thrust, and her eyes flashed with rising anger, but before she could make any retort, Pressly Hart pulled up in his car in front of the house and came up on the porch. In the car with him was John Dixon, a lawyer living in the colony. “Oh, hello, Tilt,” he exclaimed, “it is you I'm looking for. I thought I'd find you here. I am going over to Doctor Rhodes's cottage with Dixon to look through his papers to see if we can find any clue to the mystery. For some reason Dixon wants you along.” “Certainly I’ll come,” said Tilt, rising, glad of an excuse to absent himself. “It may interest you to know,” Hart explained to him, as they drove away, “that I talked with Doctor Dooner after the inquest. He agreed with me that Rhodes's murder was most mysterious. I decided that in the interests of the club we ought to help clear the thing up and telephoned to the city for 62 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB an experienced detective I knew about. He came out on the two-sixteen and is to meet us at the cottage.” As Tilt listened, he was wondering curiously why Dixon had insisted on his coming, but Hart chat- tered on, giving him no chance to ask questions, and just as they reached the Rhodes cottage the detective drove up in the Inn taxi. It was the boyish-looking young man who had come up from the station with Carew. He and Tilt gave each other casual glances and then with a howl of joy fell on each other's neck. “Bill Tilt!” exclaimed Devan. “Good old Dick,” roared Tilt delightedly. “What,” cried Hart, “do you two chaps know each other?” “Do we know each other,” cried Tilt. “We were buddies in France. I’ll tell you, Hart, you've picked some detective. Devan was one of Uncle Sam's very finest intelligence officers.” Their surprised greetings over, they approached the cottage, where they found Mrs. Grady holding mournful court on the porch. All the servants in THE FIRST SECRET 63 the colony — Swedish, Irish, colored and Japanese — seemed to be gathered there, and to each new arrival she was tearfully relating the episode of the midnight telephone message. “Send these people away,” Hart commanded, and as they departed, he explained to the old house- keeper the mission on which they had come. She was alone in the house, for Rhodes's body had been conveyed to the undertaker's shop in the village. She made no objection but led them at once to the doctor's study, pointing to a large old-fashioned safe that stood in one corner. “You’ll find them all there,” she said. “That's where he was after keeping everything.” “That will be all, Mrs. Grady,” said the lawyer suggestively, as she took her place in the doorway, arms akimbo, evidently intent on seeing what went on, but at his hint she grumblingly withdrew, leav- ing them alone. “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Dixon, “before we ex- amine the contents of the safe, I would like to relate a curious incident. Several times in the last few years I have happened to look after some small legal matters for Doctor Rhodes. Though I know noth- 64 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB ing in general about his affairs. One day, a couple of weeks ago, he dropped into my office. “‘Dixon, he said, ‘I’ve been making a will. I wish you'd look over it and tell me if you think it will stand, and get me some witnesses while I sign it.’ I read through the document, and he signed it, taking it away with him. As he was leaving the office, he turned and came back. “‘Dixon, he said, “if anything ever happens to me, here is the combination to the safe in my cottage up at the beach.” “‘What do you wish me to do with it?” I asked. “‘Keep it. Living alone as I do, it is just as well for some one to know where to find things.’” “Do you suppose,” asked Tilt, in awed tones, “that he had any premonition, any warning of the dreadful thing that was soon to happen to him? Did he speak of any threats against his life?” The lawyer shook his head. “He was as calm and collected as if he were dis- cussing the weather. There was nothing in his manner to indicate any mental perturbation. The incident made little impression on me at the time, even though I could not help marveling at the con- THE FIRST SECRET 65 tents of his will. I put the slip with the safe com- bination on it in an envelope and locked it up and never gave it another thought until this morning; when I heard of the murder, I went right into town then and got it.” “When did you say he gave it to you?” asked Hart thoughtfully. “I’ve forgotten the exact date. It was about two weeks ago.” “That must have been just at the time he dis- charged the steward,” cried Hart excitedly. “You don't suppose that Gus Pincus had threatened his life, do you?” “Nonsense,” cried Tilt. “Gus Pincus is a light-fingered rascal, but he wouldn't hurt a fly. It's absurd to think of Rhodes being afraid of flim.” “Anyhow,” suggested Devan, “let’s see what is in the safe.” Dixon, combination in hand, quickly opened it, revealing books and papers within in apple-pie order, for Rhodes, like most successful surgeons, had been methodical in everything he did. There were sev- eral ledgers in which he had kept accounts of his 66 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB professional work and of the returns from his in- vestments, and in an envelope with them a packet of income tax receipts. As they glanced over these, an exclamation of astonishment escaped his three neigh- bors. Though they all had looked on him as fairly well to do, none had suspected Rhodes of being any- thing like a millionaire, yet the receipts showed that he had been paying taxes on an income exceeding seventy thousand. Practically all his estate, it quickly appeared, was in bonds and stocks, for no deeds were found except for the cottage in which he lived, though his securi- ties filled one of the drawers in the safe. They did not stop to list these but hastened to open a small drawer to which they found a key inside the safe. Within it, with a packet of Liberty Bonds, they found a sealed gray envelope with something written on the outside. Dixon carried it to the window, where the light was better, and together they ex- amined the superscription, which read: “The last will and testament of Walter Rhodes, M. D., of Rockmont.” - “We'd better not open it,” said Dixon. “Why not?” said Hart. “You’re his attorney. THE FIRST SECRET 67 That's undoubtedly just the reason he gave you the combination to his safe.” Dixon looked toward the detective, who nodded approval, whereupon he broke the seal and drew forth a document in the doctor's own handwriting, which read: June 10, 1921. I, Walter Rhodes, M.D., being of sound and dis- posing mind and memory, and considering the un- certainty of life, do make, publish and declare this to be my last will and testament as follows, hereby revoking all other and former wills by me, at any time made: FIRST: I direct that all lawful and just claims against my estate shall be paid. SEconD: I direct that my executor shall pay an annuity of six hundred dollars ($600) in monthly payments to my housekeeper, Bridget Grady, for the term of her natural life, as a recognition of her faithful services to me. THIRD: I direct that my executor shall pay to Rose Addison, nurse, who has been in my employ for many years, the sum of Ten Thousand dollars ($10,000) in cash. FourtH: The residue of my estate, both real and personal, I give, devise and bequeath to Mary Eve- lyn Manners, of Rockmont. FIFTH: I hereby appoint as my sole executor, without bond, and with power to sell, my friend William H. Tilt, and I hereby urge and warn said 68 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB executor, by all lawful expedients, to oppose and re- sist any claim or claims against my estate, full legal settlement of my wife's interest therein having been made, as by law provided. As Dixon raised his eyes from the document he had been reading, his glance met the startled eyes of his auditors. In that last paragraph, in that carefully worded warning to his executor, they read a revelation. They sensed that in Walter Rhodes's life there had been a secret — some hidden, ugly thing — that he dared not face, something so re- pellent, perhaps so scandalous that he had referred to it only in the most obscure way. But Tilt, while he grasped the sinister significance of that last clause as quickly as the others, was even more startled and perturbed by what had gone before. “I wonder what it means?” he muttered to him- self. “He’s left everything to Mollie, and he made the will the day after she got engaged.” “But,” said Dixon, “plainly he was expecting his will to be contested. That last clause refers to a wife who he must have had reason to believe might fight for a share in the money. That paragraph puzzled me when he had me read the will, but as he THE FIRST SECRET 69 volunteered no explanation, I asked for none. If you will recall, there was always a reserve about him that made one hesitate to ask him questions. As a lawyer, I had no reason for trying to question him. The will clearly and plainly stated what his wishes were, and that is all any will can do.” “That last paragraph must refer to some episode that happened years ago,” said Pressly Hart. “Who would have thought that Walter Rhodes had a past.” “All men have pasts,” said Richard Devan sagely. “So Rhodes was married.” - “Married?” cried Hart. “And we all thought him the most confirmed old bachelor you ever saw. Women didn’t seem to interest him.” “Why, then,” asked Devan, “did he leave his fortune to one, to Miss Manners?” Meanwhile Tilt's mind had been in a turmoil. The news of what the will contained was astound- ing, almost incredible. Mollie an heiress, Mollie a millionaire! All Rhodes's money left to her. What would people think about it? What would they say? Already her name was being bandied about. The unfortunate inquest had started the tongues of gossip wagging about her and Rhodes. 7o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Look here,” he cried, “can't we keep the con- tents of this will secret for the present? It will only make talk if it is filed. Is there not some way that it can be withheld until the mystery of the murder is solved?” “That matter rests in your hands,” said Dixon. “The law allows a reasonable length of time for the filing of a will.” Devan's keen eyes had been studying Tilt's face as he made the proposition, as if trying to discover the executor's real motive in making it. “Tilt is right,” he said abruptly. “It can do no harm to keep the contents of the will secret for a few days. Its publication, in fact, might only result in starting a lot of gossip that would obscure the trail of the murderer. What do you say, gentlemen? Shall we pledge ourselves to secrecy until Tilt gives the word?” “What about Mollie — Miss Manners?” asked Tilt. “Hasn't she at least a right to know about it?” “I think,” said Devan, after a moment's con- sideration, “you may safely tell her about it, if you will pledge her also to secrecy.” THE FIRST SECRET 71 “Then,” said Hart, half disappointedly, it seemed to Tilt, “you don't think that she is mixed up in it in any way — in the murder, I mean?” “Some woman is mixed up in nearly every mur- der,” said Devan, “but although I have hardly be- gun my investigation yet, I’m convinced that in the case of Doctor Rhodes's murder, the woman in- volved is not Miss Manners.” “Who is it then?” asked Hart eagerly. “I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea yet. I can only say that when we find the woman in- volved, we'll find the murderer.” “You think a woman did it!” cried Tilt amaz- edly. “I didn't say so. I merely meant that whether a man or a woman did the killing, there is a woman involved in it somewhere.” Giving the pledge of secrecy that Tilt had sug- gested, they restored the papers to the safe and separated, Tilt insisting on his old friend making his headquarters at the Tilt cottage. “It will enable you to carry on your investigations without any one suspecting you,” Tilt explained. “My people are in the mountains, and we'll be alone 72 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB there. I'll give it out that you are an old army mate of mine here on a visit, and you can work un- molested.” “That's a bully idea,” said Devan, “if Mr. Hart and Mr. Dixon will help us preserve my incognito.” The reasonableness of this appealed to both of them, and they readily assented. Tilt drove back to the Inn with Devan to get his luggage, but as they rode along together, there came into his mind four puzzling questions, – questions that he did not sub- mit even to his friend, Richard Devan; questions to which, ponder over them though he did for many days to come, he could find no satisfactory answer. Why had Walter Rhodes left all his money to Mollie Manners the day after her engagement was announced? Why had Rhodes named him as executor—him, Bill Tilt — when Mollie was to marry Paul Carew P Who was Walter Rhodes's wife? - Where was she? CHAPTER V A NEW MYSTERY “It’s your theory, then,” said Tilt, as he and Richard Devan sat that evening after dinner on the porch of the Tilt cottage, “that a woman did it?” “I try not to have theories,” said Devan. He had had a busy afternoon after their discovery of Walter Rhodes's will. He had visited the club- house and made a minute study of the scene of the crime. He had driven over to see Doctor Dooner and from him had obtained an account of what the inquest had brought forth; and besides, he had spent a long time at the telephone, for what purpose Tilt had no idea. “It is not a theory, but an accepted fact with in- vestigators,” he continued, “that in ninety per cent. of the cases of premeditated murder, a woman is involved in some way. Old Nature has seen to that. The sex relation is the most impelling motive there is. Where a man kills another in a quarrel, 74 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB it may be over property, a fancied insult, without premeditation, a woman may or may not be at the bottom of it; but where a murder is carefully planned, facts show that we can safely assume that there is a woman concerned. But theories otherwise only hamper an investigator. The modern method is to collect the facts and then more facts, and when you have gathered all the facts possible, to try to fit them together.” “I suppose your army work taught you that.” “It surely did. In our intelligence work, we al- ways went about everything that way, noting and making record of even the most trivial things. It was surprising often, when the facts that had been collected by a dozen different investigators were as- sembled, how enlightening they were. At first most of them would seem utterly insignificant, meaning- less, with no relation to each other. As you studied them carefully, you suddenly would discover that two of them matched. You put the two together and began grouping the other facts you had gathered about the two that matched. Before you knew it, you had formed a picture, and the information you sought was before you. In a murder case, I have 76 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB whether anything she may tell us will fit into what we already have.” Seizing a pad he jotted down: Walter Rhodes two weeks ago makes a will. From this will it is evident that he anticipates a claimant to his fortune to appear. He shows the will to a lawyer and gives him the combination of his safe. Question—What put the thought of making a will into his head? Had threats been made against him? Were these threats made in per- son or by mail? Who would be apt to know about these threats? “I’d say the nurse would be likely to know if any one did,” interrupted Tilt. “It’ll do no harm to ask her,” admitted Devan, as he resumed his summary: Last night a man calls Rhodes to the tele- phone. He goes to the club, presumably to keep an appointment with this man. He waits for some time and starts to write a note. While writing, he is shot down through the open window. The use of a rifle indicates that his murderer is a man. 78 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB arrest will only serve to make the real murderer feel safer.” “The thing that puzzles me most,” said Tilt, “is the disappearance of that note the doctor was writ- ing. Who do you suppose could have taken it?” “The murderer probably has it,” answered Devan calmly. “But there was no one in the clubhouse but Ed Manners and I. You don't think it was one of us?” Devan laughed at his friend's consternation. “You two didn't see any one else there, but there must have been some one else. Picture the committing of the crime. The murderer has four things in mind, - to kill Rhodes, to make it look like suicide, to get away safely, and to conceal his rifle. He is so intent on these four things that he forgets about the note Rhodes is writing. Rhodes's body, as it falls forward on the table, conceals the note. The murderer carries out his plans and reaches home without having been discovered. Naturally, though, he is unable to sleep. As he lies in bed, he reënacts the tragedy, trying to make certain that he has left no clues behind. Suddenly he recalls what Rhodes was doing as he fired at him. The thought appals A NEW MYSTERY 79 him. Rhodes was writing — what? To whom? His name may be on that scrap of paper. It may betray him. He must get possession of it before any one else finds it. He rises hastily and hurries to the clubhouse. He is too late. You and Man- ners are already there. He conceals himself in one of the alcoves and watches to see what you will do. When you are telephoning, he sees his opportunity. He gets possession of the paper and vanishes. He feels safe against discovery.” “I hope you are right,” sighed Tilt, “but what do you suppose was the murderer's motive? That's what gets me.” “Who, here in the colony, knows Rhodes best? Who are his oldest friends?” “The Manners family, I suppose,” said Tilt guardedly. “They must have known him a long time.” “Any one else?” “Yes,” said Tilt, “there's old Hodder, who looks after the boats. He calls Rhodes “the Commander.” They must have been in the navy together, though I never knew till the inquest that Rhodes had been a navy man.” 8o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Can you get old Hodder here to-night, right away?” asked Devan, his keen gray eyes showing acute interest. “Sure! I'll run down to his shacknow and bring him over.” Not until his return with Hodder a few minutes later did he understand that the errand on which he had been dispatched was a ruse on Devan's part to be alone when Miss Addison arrived. She was on the porch talking earnestly to Devan, a slender woman of perhaps forty, who even without her uni- form looked just what she was, – a sensible, prac- tical, capable trained nurse. “Would you mind asking Hodder to wait a few minutes on the lawn?” said Devan, as he presented Tilt. “Miss Addison was just about to tell me something that may have a bearing on the case.” “It was about three weeks ago,” the nurse began, “when Doctor Rhodes made a request that struck me as peculiar. He was always most methodical, let- ting nothing interfere with his office hours, but one day he said: ‘Miss Addison, please make no engage- ments for me to-morrow between two and four, and if any one comes send them away. I am expecting A NEW MYSTERY 81 a caller with whom I have an important matter to discuss. Admit no one but him.” “What's his name?” I asked, to be sure of admitting the right person. ‘He'll call himself Mr. Smith,’ he an- swered.” “Did you see this Mr. Smith?” asked Devan eagerly. “Could you describe him?” Miss Addison shook her head. “Doctor Rhodes must have been at the window, on the lookout for him. He admitted the man him- self, without waiting for him to ring the bell. I was in the back offices making up bandages and did not know there was any one there until I heard excited voices in the front office.” “Excited voices! Was there a quarrel?” “It did not sound as if they were quarreling. Doctor Rhodes's voice seemed as firm and even as always. It sounded rather as if he was insisting on his caller doing something and as if the man was protesting vigorously against it.” “How long did the caller stay?” “It must have been over an hour. The doctor himself let the man out, and I did not see him.” “Was that the only time this visitor was there?” 82 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “No, he came twice afterward, the last time only day before yesterday, and as before his visits always were shrouded in mystery, the doctor himself ad- mitting him and letting him out. I never caught even a glimpse of him.” “Would you know his voice again if you heard it?” “I doubt it. I heard it only through folding doors. No, I don't think so.” “Is there anything else you can think of that might have a bearing on the case?” “No, I don’t think there is,” she answered, after a moment's hesitation. “Do you know Miss Manners — Miss Mollie Manners?” asked Devan. “I know that the doctor had a friend of that name, but I never have seen her. Several times he has commissioned me to buy birthday and Christmas gifts for her.” “Do you know if Doctor Rhodes had ever been married ?” “Married!” she cried. “Why, of course not. He was a typical old bachelor.” “Call Hodder in,” said Devan, turning to Tilt. A NEW MYSTERY 83 “Miss Addison, I’d be glad to have you stay and hear what Hodder has to say, if you wish.” “Certainly I’ll stay,” she said. “I’m just as much interested in things as you are.” “I forgot to tell you,” said Devan, “that Rhodes has left you ten thousand dollars.” Miss Addison's eyes filled with tears. “It was just like him to do that. He was good and kind to every one, but I’d willingly give it all to have him back, or to discover the man who killed him.” “Hodder,” said Tilt, coming upon the porch just then with the old boatman, “this is Mr. Devan, who wishes to ask you some questions about Doctor Rhodes.” “All right, sir,” the man replied. “You called Doctor Rhodes “the Commander,’” said Devan. “How long had you known him?” “A matter of twenty-five, maybe twenty-six years, and a fine man he was, too.” “Why did you call him “the Commander’?” “That’s what he was when I first knowed him — Commander Rhodes, sir.” “In the American navy P” 84 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Sure, sir. We seen service together, him and me.” “Had he ever been married?” The old man's face took on a strange look, its hardening lines indicating a stubborn intent not to reveal too much. “That's not for me to be saying.” “But he had been married?” “I’m not saying that.” “What are you so secretive about it for?” de- manded Tilt, explosively. “ Why don't you tell us if Rhodes was married or not? You know, don’t you?” “I’m not saying if I know or if I don't know. Fifteen years ago it was my enlistment ran out, and I was looking for a place when who should I meet but the Commander, and it was him that brought me up here, and just one word he says to me. “Hodder,’ he says, “what's past is buried and ain’t to be talked about.” “Right, sir,’ says I, and it ain’t going to be talked about, even with him lying dead there. It was himself put it on me to be silent, if by chance there was anything I knew, and silent I’ll be, not that I’m saying there's anything I know.” A NEW MYSTERY 85 “But,” persisted Devan, “if there is anything you know that may help us find who murdered Doc- tor Rhodes, don't you see that it is your duty to tell us, your duty as a friend. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?” “The best friend I had in the world,” the old man said. “Then why won't you tell us what you know about him?” “Nothing I could tell could bring him back again,” persisted Hodder stubbornly. “But wouldn't you like to see his murderer cap- tured?” said Tilt. “Do you think it's right to hold back information that may help the man that killed him?” “It may be right, and it mayn’t. There's never but the one thing he asked of me, and many's the kind thing he's done for me. It ain't to be talked about, says he, and come what may, I ain’t talking.” “Perhaps,” suggested Miss Addison in an under- tone, “he might talk to Mr. Tilt by himself. The presence of two strangers may bother him.” Devan nodded understandingly, and turning to Tilt, said: 86 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Well, Bill, if Mr. Hodder doesn't wish to take us into his confidence, I suppose that is all there is to it, so as there are some things Miss Addison and I wish to talk over alone, we'll excuse you two.” “You understand, sir,” said old Hodder apolo- getically, as he rose to go, “I'd tell you what you're asking if I could, but he says to me, says he, “Hod- der, there's some things that ain't to be talked about.’” “I understand,” said Devan, catching Bill's eye in an effort to give him the suggestion that he should try to pump the old man as they went away together. Tilt caught his meaning, but as he and old Hodder strolled together to the old man's shack, not a word more could he get out of him. Feeling vastly dis- appointed, he returned home, to find Miss Addison just entering the taxi for the station. “Get anything more?” asked Devan, as soon as they were alone. “Not a word. He's as stubborn as a stone fence.” “Never mind. We'll find some way of making him talk when we are ready. Who else here in the A New MYSTERY 87 colony knew Rhodes well — who has known him for a long time?” “I suppose,” said Tilt, after pondering over the question, “that Mrs. Manners must know him as well as any one.” “The girl's mother?” “Of course, Mollie's mother.” “Do you know the family well enough to take me over there — to drop in quite casually?” “Oh, yes, certainly. I'm over there a lot. It will seem perfectly natural for me to bring over an old pal to meet them.” “Come on, then,” said Devan. When they reached the Manners home, they found its occupants following their accustomed routine, in spite of the day's exciting events, Mollie and Paul Carew ensconced on the porch, the Terrible Kit away at one of the neighbors, and Ed off somewhere playing auction. Presenting Devan merely as an old army pal, Tilt lingered on the porch for only a moment and then remarked: “Dick must meet your mother.” “You know where to find her,” Mollie answered lazily from the hammock. A NEW MYSTERY 89 k * 3. impression that she was on guard, alert, terri- fied. “What a funny question,” she said, speaking in a hard, metallic tone and evidently making the greatest effort to retain her self-control. “What made you ask me that?” “But he had been married, hadn't he?” Tilt per- sisted. “You’ve known Doctor Rhodes a long time, probably longer than any one else in Rockmont. You must know. There's something that has come up"—he almost let it slip about the will before he remembered that they had agreed to keep it secret — “something that makes me believe that at some time . Rhodes had a wife. Did he?” “Something about his death — about his mur- der?” asked Mrs. Manners. She had risen now from her seat and stood facing him, frantic anxiety showing in her manner. “Yes,” said Tilt, “ something about his murder. Was he married?” Instead of answering him, Mrs. Manners sud- denly turned and sat down, burying her face in her hands, as if she would shut out from her memory something that his question had recalled. 90 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “You mustn't ask me that. I can't answer it. I won’t,” she almost sobbed, as Tilt stood staring in amazement at her. Devan, although taking no part in the conversation, was watching her closely. “But it's important—most important,” Tilt per- sisted. .” “It isn't possible,” Mrs. Manners burst out. “She didn’t do it. She couldn’t have.” “Then he was married,” Devan's voice cut in. “Please, please, don't ask me any more ques- tions,” begged Mrs. Manners. “It has been such a distressing day. So much has happened. 'I mustn't talk. Give me time to think. Give me till to-morrow. Go, won't you, Bill, both of you — please go — at once. I must be alone. I must think. I must think what to do. I'll answer your questions. I’ll tell you anything you wish to know to-morrow. Give me till to-morrow. She couldn’t have done it. It's impossible.” CHAPTER VI SEVERAL SURPRISES WHEN Tilt got up on Sunday morning, about ten as usual, he was amazed to discover that Devan had breakfasted long before and had vanished, pre- sumably off Scouting somewhere for more facts to complete his picture. “What time did he go out?” he asked the cook. “It was long before eight. When I came down, before seven, he was sitting on the porch. I made him some coffee, and off he went.” “He didn't say where he was going?” “He did not.” “Nor when he would return?” “No, sir. He just drank his coffee and went.” Somehow Tilt felt cheated. Utterly mystified over Mrs. Manners’ extraordinary conduct the night before, he had tried in vain, as he and Devan walked home together, to extract the investigator's theory about it, but Devan wouldn't talk. All the 94 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB about the Manners family and wondering why he and Ed had tried to avoid mentioning that accursed scrap of paper. He knew, too, that Mollie's ap- pearance and statements at the inquest had started the tongues of gossip and scandal. If on top of all this Mrs. Manners herself had gone away, what would people think? “Where has your mother gone?” he repeated. “I don't know,” said Kit. “None of us know. When we came downstairs this morning, there was a note from Mother on the table. She said in it that she had to go away for a few days on some business. She said that it was nothing for any of us to worry about, but she didn't tell what it was.” “Didn't she say where she went?” Tilt asked again, more puzzled than ever. “No, that's all — just what I told you. It's funny, though, she went off so unexpectedly. She hadn't told any of us her plans— not even Ed.” Tilt listened, astounded, perplexed, mystified, as the Terrible Kit rattled on. There was no doubt in his mind that this unexpected departure of Mrs. Manners was in some way connected with the mur- der of Walter Rhodes. He felt sure that her de- SEVERAL SURPRISES 95 cision to make this mysterious journey had not been reached until after he had begun to question her about the marriage. There certainly had been some incident in Rhodes's past, some painful episode con- cerning a woman, with the details of which Mrs. Manners was acquainted. But even so, Tilt could find no theory to account for her marked perturba- tion the evening before. Why had she refused to answer his question? Why had she begged for time? Where had she gone this morning and for what purpose? More eager now than ever to find Devan and re- port to him this amazing new development, he turned to go, but to his amazement the Terrible Kit caught him by the sleeve and looked at him appeal- ingly. “Bill Tilt,” she said, “you are a good friend of mine, aren't you?” “Why, of course, Kit,” he said, wondering what was coming next. “And I can trust you?” “Sure you can.” “Bill,” she whispered mysteriously, “I know something more about it. I’ve had a message.” 96 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB " “What on earth are you talking about? What do you mean—a message from your mother?” “No,” said Kit, “not from her. It was some- thing vastly more important than that.” Tilt plumped himself down on a porch chair beside the two youngsters, much puzzled by Kit's excited manner, and looked inquiringly at Gertie. “It's all right,” said Kit reassuringly, “Gertie knows. We got the message together.” “What message? What do you mean?” Kit's voice once again sank to a mysterious whis- per as she leaned forward excitedly: “A message about the murder!” “A message — from whom?” demanded Tilt. With a quick jerk, Kit drew aside her skirt, re- vealing a ouija board. “Ouija told us something,” she said solemnly, “something most important.” “Oh, tommyrot,” laughed Tilt in relief. “Surely you girls don’t take any stock in that sort of truck. It’s all nonsense.” “It isn't nonsense,” cried Gertie. “Indeed it isn't,” insisted Kit. “Lots and lots SEVERAL SURPRISES 97 of times ouija has given us wonderful messages, and some of them have been true.” “Oh, shucks,” growled Tilt; “you're both too big to swallow that sort of thing.” “When things come true,” persisted Kit, “you have to believe. And we did have a message — a message about the murder — just a few minutes ago, just before you came up on the porch. We asked the same question twice, and each time we got the same answer.” “What was the question?” said Tilt, interested in spite of his doubts. “We asked ouija, ‘Who killed Walter Rhodes?’” “And what did ouija say?” “Promise you won't tell any one. Mother forbade my using the ouija board, but this time I just had to. It was so important to find out.” “All right, I promise.” Still Kit hesitated, studying his face ear- nestly. “I’m afraid to tell you, Bill. You think it all a big joke. But we did ask the question, and we got an answer—such a funny answer. We don't know 98 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB what to make of it, but we feel it's dreadfully im- portant. We know it means something, but prob- ably you’ll only laugh.” “I promise not to laugh.” “You see,” said Kit solemnly, “we’ve got to tell some one about it. We couldn't tell Mother, even if she were here, because she doesn't like my using ouija. And you'll see when we tell the mes- sage why Mollie mustn't know about it. Ed would only laugh at us, so you're the only person we can tell, unless we tell the police.” “For heaven's sake, don’t do that,” said Tilt, with visions of scareheads in all the papers over the Terrible Kit's pictures. “We want you to promise that when we tell you, you'll do something, that you'll try to find out what the message means.” “God knows I will do anything and everything to find out who killed Rhodes.” “It said the same thing twice,” shrilled Gertie. “Yes,” reiterated Kit, “exactly the same both times.” “What did it say?” “It said, “Ask Paul Carew.’” 2- SEVERAL SURPRISES 99 “Both times the same,” repeated Gertie excitedly. “Oh, nonsense,” cried Tilt. “Kit, your mother is absolutely right. If you were my daughter, I’d spank you if you ever touched ouija. Ask Paul Carew — what rot!” “I don't care,” replied Kit, stiffening with hurt pride. “That's what the message said, and you promised you wouldn't laugh and you promised you'd try to find out what it meant. We trusted you with our secret, and you're a mean, hateful thing. Come on, Gertie.” Grabbing up their ouija board, the girls started into the house, but Kit paused in the door and turned for a parting fling: “Of course ouija doesn't always tell the truth. Several weeks ago I kept asking, ‘Will Mollie marry Paul Carew P’ and every time the answer came, “Bill Tilt,’ ‘Bill Tilt, but I'm glad ouija doesn't always tell the truth, for I wouldn't let Mollie marry you if you were the last man on earth—so there!” As the door slammed behind the irate youngster, Tilt turned abruptly and started homeward, inclined to moralize on the foolish conduct of the young loo TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB among females. Mrs. Manners was right. Kit had no business monkeying with that ouija board. He wondered if he ought not to speak to Mollie and Ed about her psychic venturings and have them make her stop it. It was all nonsense, but where could these two silly youngsters have got such an answer to their question? Probably one or the other of them, consciously or unconsciously, had manipulated the board, but even so, why had they brought in Carew's name? It must have been the Terrible Kit. She had the stronger personality of the two. What could have put it into her silly head to write such a message about her sister's fiancé? Maybe she disliked him, and the dislike expressed itself subconsciously when she got herself into a semi-hysterical state. Half-bitterly he thought of the other message that she had mentioned, getting his name when she asked whom Mollie was to marry. That certainly was odd. Down in his heart, he had waked up to the fact that he cared for Mollie, that he had wanted her for a wife, before Carew had won her. If only - He espied Devan half a block ahead and hurried SEVERAL SURPRISES 1 O 1 to catch up with him, eager to tell him of Mrs. Manners’ mysterious departure. “Hello, Devan,” he called out, “I’ve some news that will surprise you.” “What do you mean?” asked Devan and waited for him to catch up. “Have you just discovered that Mrs. Manners has gone away?” “You know that?” Devan nodded. “After our visit there last night and the surpris- ing way in which she acted when you asked about Rhodes's marriage, the more I pondered over it, the more convinced I became that she was likely to make a journey somewhere this morning. That's what I was thinking of when I asked you for a schedule.” “I don't see how you could possibly have made any such deduction,” cried Tilt in perplexity. “I don't quite see myself, but I did. From her actions, it was evident that she knew the secret in Rhodes's past and must have known something about the woman involved. You remember her exclama- tion, “She couldn't have done it.’ It was apparent that she was suddenly confronted with the idea that the murder was done by this woman, yet for some 102 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB reason she believed that the woman was not in a position to have done it. There was only one way in which she could satisfy herself on this point and that was by making a personal investigation. That was the mission that took her to Boston on the first train this morning. I saw her go.” “You didn't shadow her?” There was resent- ment in Tilt's tone. The idea of having his friends under espionage seemed repellent. “Don’t worry,” Devan hastened to reassure him. “It was discreetly done. She hadn't the slightest idea that any one witnessed her departure.” “I suppose,” said Tilt, still unmollified, “that you wired on to Boston to have some one pick her up there and shadow her.” “No,” said Devan, “nothing like that will be necessary. Mrs. Manners is an intelligent, law- abiding sort. It is only the unintelligent who try to obstruct the workings of justice. As soon as she has returned, she will be ready to tell us everything she knows, or I miss my guess. She is just as anxious as you are to discover who murdered Rhodes, but she is determined to be fair-minded and will not let us suspect this woman, whoever she is, SEVERAL SURPRISES 103 until she is sure that there is ground for suspi- cion.” “I’m glad at any rate that you didn't shadow her.” “I would like to know, though,” said Devan thoughtfully, “what she and old Hodder said to each other. She spent fifteen minutes at his cot- tage before she took the train this morning.” CHAPTER VII IN THE MORNING MAIL, It wasn't until Wednesday morning — the day after Walter Rhodes's funeral — that Bill Tilt found the opportunity he had been seeking of seeing Mollie alone. Oversleeping, he had missed his regular train, the seven-fifty-three, and arrived at the station barely in time to get aboard the eight-thirty-six. As he passed down the aisle, exchanging nods with his various acquaintances, he was delighted to observe Mollie seated alone and dropped down beside her. “Oh, Bill,” she exclaimed, “I’m so glad. There’s something I wanted to tell you — to show you — something I can't understand.” “And I,” said Tilt, “have been trying for three days to find you alone. I’ve something to tell you, something wonderful — a tremendous surprise.” Apparently giving little heed to what he was say- ing, the girl had been fumbling in her bag, and now she brought out an envelope and offered it guardedly for his inspection. IN THE MORNING MAIL loš “Look, Bill,” she whispered, “look at what came to me in this morning's mail. It's the missing message, the scrap of paper that disap- peared.” Amazed, Tilt took the envelope from her hands and examined its contents. It was unquestionably the same paper that he and Ed Manners had seen lying on the table, a prescription blank and written on it the words, “I have waited here for you over ha-’’ in Rhodes's well-known hand. Frowningly, he studied it, turning the envelope over and over. There seemed little that would give any clue to the sender. It had been mailed in Rockmont the even- ing before, and on the envelope were only the words, “Miss Mollie Manners,” written in the hand of some one little used to penmanship. It might be, Tilt decided, either the writing of some illiterate person, or an attempt to disguise some one's pen- manship, but most it looked like the writing of a badly educated child. “What do you make of it?” whispered Mollie. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It looks like a child's writing. I'd say it might have been written by some girl. It looks like a girl's writing.” 106 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “It struck me that way, too. Whom do you suppose sent it to me?” There flashed into his mind what Devan had said about it, — that the murderer, having killed Rhodes and made his escape and having successfully con- cealed his rifle, after reaching home had suddenly recalled the paper on which Rhodes had been writing and in alarm had returned to the scene of the crime, fearful lest it might betray him. But if Devan's theory were right, why had the murderer mailed this scrap of paper to Mollie? What could have been the motive? “Was there anything else in the envelope — any note?” he asked. “No, that was all — just what you have there.” “Have you shown it to any one else?” “No, the postman handed it to me just as I was leaving the house this morning. You're the only person that has seen it.” “Look here,” he said quickly, “promise me that you will not show it to any one, not yet, at any rate.” There had come into his mind the scene on the Manners’ porch Sunday afternoon, and the thought IN THE MORNING MAIL 107 had come to him that possibly Kit, with the aid of her friend Gertie, in some way had retrieved the paper. They both, he realized, were all worked up about the tragedy, and there was no telling to what hysterical ends their doings with ouija might lead them. He determined to get possession in some way of specimens of the handwriting of both young- sters and decide if they had had anything to do with it. . “I wish you'd keep it, Bill,” said Mollie. “I shan't say a word to any one about it. Doctor Rhodes was my very best friend, and every time I saw that paper or thought about it, it would bring back his terrible end.” “He was indeed your best friend,” said Tilt, “a far better friend than you have any idea of.” “What makes you say that?” “We found his will Saturday afternoon. He left nearly a million dollars, and he left it practically all to you. Think of it, Mollie; he left you every- thing.” “That would be just like him,” said Mollie softly, with a little quiver in her voice, “but I’d give it all — every cent of it, to have him back.” 108 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Funny thing about it, though, he made me the executor. I can't understand why he did that.” “I’m not surprised at that. He thought a lot of you. He often talked with me about you.” “For certain reasons we thought it best,” Tilt went on, “to keep quiet about the will for the pres- ent. We agreed to tell no one about the will but you. There was one very peculiar clause in it.” “Was it,” asked Mollie, her voice breaking a little, “was it about his marriage — about that woman?” “You knew about that?” cried Tilt, astounded. “Not everything.” “Tell me about it. Tell me everything he told you.” “Look here, Bill,” said Mollie, turning to him and speaking in a tense whisper. “I’m going to tell you something I never have told a soul — not even my own mother. I was closer to Walter Rhodes, I think, than any one else in the world. I think he thought more of me than he did of any one else. I know he did. I thought — I still think — he was one of the grandest and noblest of men. There was once, it was years and years ago when I was IN THE MORNING MAIL log eighteen, I thought I was in love with him. You know how silly and romantic girls of that age are. He used to take me riding with him and was always nice to me. To him, of course, I was still a child. I don't think he had realized yet that I was growing up. Once "— her cheeks turned a fiery red— “once I asked him to marry me.” “What — you asked Walter Rhodes to marry you!” “It sounds terribly foolish now, but that's what I did. It was then that he told me about it.” “Told you what?” “About his marriage. It seems that years and years ago, when he was a young surgeon in the navy, he met a beautiful girl and became wildly in- fatuated with her. He courted her arduously for two weeks, and then they were married. Right after that he was ordered to the Philippines and was gone for two years. The first year he was away, there was a child. He was reported killed, and for months nothing was heard of him. He had been wandering in the bush for months, insane from a blow on the head, cared for by the natives, I guess. When they found him, it was a long time before he 11o TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB was well. They took out the bone that was pressing on his brain. He came home, still crazy in love with his wife, and found her married to another man.” “How terrible for him.” “I don't know just what happened after that. Of course, there was a terrible scene and they sepa- rated. My father wanted him to get a divorce, but he wouldn't do it. I think he still loved her. I be- lieve he loved her to the day of his death.” “What became of the woman?” “I don’t know. He didn't tell me that.” “And the child — what became of it?” “I don't know. I think my father knew, and perhaps my mother knows something about it. Of course, I never talked with them about it.” “I’m sure your mother knows. That's why she has gone away — at least that's what Devan thinks.” “Mr. Devan — I don’t understand. What has he to do with it?” “Oh, I’ve been intending to tell you about him. Pressly Hart thought the murder was so mysterious that the club ought to make its own investigations, so he hired Devan to conduct it.” 112 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB from the start, have been positive that it was a man who murdered Doctor Rhodes. A woman would not have used a rifle. Nor is it likely that Rhodes would have been meeting a woman at that hour in the morning. He was not that sort.” “I wonder — could it have been "- there was horror at the thought in Mollie's tone — “could it have been that woman's child?” “That's just a possibility,” ventured Tilt. “Per- haps your mother can tell us something when she returns. I am positive her sudden trip was connected with the secret in Doctor Rhodes's Tife.” The train was now nearing the terminal. In a few minutes Tilt and Mollie would be separating, he to his business and she to her shopping, yet it did not seem to Tilt that he had had half long enough with her to talk things over. “Tell me,” said Mollie, as people began gathering up their parcels, “what have the police done?” “They have Gus Pincus locked up. The only charge against him so far is drunkenness and dis- orderly conduct. They probably will try to make out a case against him.” IN THE MORNING MAIL 113 “We must not let them do that,” said the girl determinedly. “He had nothing to do with it.” “No,” agreed Tilt. “I think you are right about that. It is just as well, though, to let them use him for a stalking horse for a few days. It xx will serve to draw attention away from “From the Manners family, I suppose you mean,” she finished, as he hesitated. “No, from what Devan is doing.” “Paul says every one in the village is gossiping about us already. He still is furious at me because I talked at the inquest. He has been trying to get me to promise him that I will take no part in the investigation. He even urged me to go away for a while. He dreads all the publicity.” “But you're not going?” There was sharp dismay in Bill Tilt's voice. The very thought of Rockmont without Mollie appalled him. More and more each day he was realizing how much her companionship meant to him. The prospect of life at Rockmont after Paul Carew had married her and taken her away loomed up very drab and dreary. “Of course I'm not going away, Billy. Do you 114 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB think I care what people say, or how much I get mixed up in the case, if only the doctor's murderer is discovered and punished. Oh, I wish I knew who was guilty — who committed such a brutal, cowardly crime.” “Devan suggests that it might have been a mem- ber of the club »y “Not one of us,” cried the girl incredulously. “Yes, he pointed out that the murderer must have been some one familiar with Doctor Rhodes's habits and with the club. He must have known that Rhodes carried a key to the clubhouse. It must have been some one Rhodes knew and knew well, or he hardly would have gone out at that hour for a meeting. Really, circumstances do point to some club member.” “Or to a club servant.” “There are only two — Pincus, whom Rhodes discharged and old Hodder.” “I'm certain it wasn't poor harmless old Gus. He might steal, but he never would kill anybody.” “I know it wasn't old Hodder. He would have laid down his life for Rhodes.” “I can't conceive,” said Mollie thoughtfully, “of IN THE MORNING MAIL 115 his making a date with either of them at one o'clock in the morning. It was neither of them.” As they made their way out of the train, there was little opportunity for further conversation, and at the street their ways parted. “Look here,” said Tilt, “when am I going to get another chance to see you alone and talk about things? I want to read that will to you.” “Come over this evening.” “But won’t Carew be there?” “No, Paul has gone away. He said last night he was leaving on the midnight train for Boston and might have to be away for several days.” “Fine,” cried Tilt, delighted at the news. “I’ll be over to-night right after dinner.” Light-hearted at the prospect of so soon having another opportunity of seeing her alone again, he left her at the Avenue, and hurrying on across Forty-second Street at Sixth Avenue, was held up by the traffic. As he waited on the curb, his mind still absorbed with the puzzling tragedy that had shocked their little community, a taxicab passed, going north. In it were a man and a woman engaged in earnest conversation. In that trance-like 116 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB condition that often accompanies mental concentra- tion, Tilt saw them with his eyes, in fact looked directly at them, but unrecognizingly, until his sub- conscious mind began hammering a warning at him. He looked again at them, this time consciously, and gasped in amazement. In the taxicab that went whirling on by was Paul Carew, who only a few hours before had told Mollie that he was taking the midnight train to Boston. Tilt stood staring after the cab perplexedly. What could it mean? Why had Carew lied to Mollie? Why had he spoken of going away and then not gone? What could have been his motive for deceiving her? While inclined to be a little jealous of Carew, and conscious now that from the first he had neither wholly liked nor wholly trusted the man, Tilt still was loath to believe him a delib- erate liar. Yet what else was there for him to think about it? It certainly had been Paul Carew in that cab. And the woman with him, the woman with whom Carew had been conversing so earnestly. Who was she? What could that mean? Tilt, as he recalled IN THE MORNING MAIL 117 the scene, was certain that her face was familiar, that she was some one he knew and had talked with, but whom? All at once it came to him — the amazing knowl- edge of who she was — the woman he and Devan had talked to for an hour hardly two days ago, Rose Addison. Though he had caught just a passing glimpse of her face, Tilt was positive as to her identity. But what could this new development mean? What angle of the mystery could thus have brought to- gether Rhodes's trusted office attendant and Paul Carew? Were they old acquaintances? Why had Carew made up an elaborate story about going to Boston and then not gone? Why was he riding up Sixth Avenue with Miss Addison, when he was supposed to be in Boston? About what had they been talking so earnestly? Perhaps, though, Tilt tried to think, there was a possibility that Carew, seeking to solve the mystery on his own hook, had discovered Miss Addison as Devan had done? He tried to persuade himself that this was the logical explanation of Carew's acquaintance with the nurse. He reasoned that if 118 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB he and not Carew were Mollie's fiancé, he would have left no stone unturned to try to discover who it was that had murdered one of her best friends; yet his arguments failed to convince himself. He felt there was something suspicious — some- thing wrong — something about Paul Carew's con- duct that should be investigated. All through the day he gave little thought to his business. His mind kept reverting to the new prob- lems that had presented themselves in the mystery. Again and again he found himself wondering about Carew, though his sense of fair-mindedness inclined him to attribute his suspicions of Carew's conduct to his own jealousy. All through the afternoon he kept watching the clock, waiting for the time to come when he should start for home; he planned to go out on the five-ten, which he guessed would be the train on which Mollie would return. As he walked to the station three questions kept recurring to his mind, - questions to which he could find no logical answers, yet questions which he felt must be answered before the mystery of the murder was solved. IN THE MORNING MAIL 119 What was the mystery in Rhodes's life that was shared by old Hodder and Mrs. Manners? Who could it have been that had mailed the missing message to Mollie, and for what reason had it been mailed to her, of all persons? And why had Paul Carew lied to her about going to Boston? GROUND FOR SUSPICION 125 To his annoyance, on reaching home, the cook informed him that Devan had telephoned, saying that he might be a little late for dinner. Impa- tiently awaiting his guest's arrival, Tilt sat on the porch trying to assemble the new facts he had learned and to piece them together so as to make them mean something, but in vain. An inspiration came to him. He remembered the telephone number where Devan had reached Rose Addison. He would call her up and ask her about Paul Carew. Miss Addison herself answered his call. “Oh, Miss Addison,” he said. “This is Mr. Tilt, Bill Tilt of Rockmont — You met me 39 “Oh, yes, I remember you. Have you learned anything new? Have you found the man who did it?” - “No, but there's something I wanted to ask you. How long have you known Mr. Carew?” “Carew — I don't know any one named Ca- rew.” “Paul Carew,” repeated Tilt, surprised. “You know him, don't you?” “Never heard of him in my life. Who is he?” 122 TFAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “We’ve got some new clues, though, good ones,” Smithers continued. “What are they?” “I ain't telling them yet,” said the grocer mysteri- ously, “but between you and I, Mr. Tilt, it's my private opinion that when the murderer is found, it'll be one of Rhodes's own friends, somebody right there in Rockmont, more'n likely somebody right in the club.” “Somebody in the club—our club,” echoed Tilt, more perturbed than he would have let Smithers know at hearing him proclaim the same thing that Devan had suggested. “Yes, siree,” said Smithers, letting his voice sink to a whisper, as he bent toward Tilt confidentially, “it wouldn't surprise me if that there Manners family wasn't connected up with it, not that I'm say- ing that any of them done it.” “What makes you think that?” said Tilt, steel- ing himself to make his voice sound natural, al- though inwardly he was boiling with rage and in- dignation at the suggestion. He was determined, however, to make the most of his opportunity and to try to worm from Smithers all that he knew or GROUND FOR SUSPICION 123 thought he knew about the case. While he re- sented, as he would if his own family had been involved, this ridiculous effort of the village police to fasten the crime on the Manners family, he was wise enough to see that his best policy would be to keep cool and find out all he could from the grocer. “What have you found out?” he asked. “Well, there's that girl—the oldest one — her and Rhodes was extra good friends. I’ve seen them lots of times riding around together. She was there at the clubhouse early that morning.” “She came there to meet me—to play tennis.” “Yes, I know that’s what you both said, but she was there before you, and I venture to say you don't know for how long. Then there was that slip of paper the kid sister of hers let slip about. Ed Manners acted mighty funny about that, trying to make out like he thought you took it. Then, on top of that, Mrs. Manners — the old lady — disappears, and now Ed's gone.” “What,” cried Tilt, “Ed Manners gone away.” “Yep,” said Smithers, nodding his head satis- fiedly. “My daughter, Clara, works in the 'phone exchange. A long-distance call come in for him 124 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB this morning from Boston. 'Twas his mother that was talking to him. My girl didn't know that I had Ed Manners under suspicion and didn't listen in, so she doesn't know what they was talking about, but when she came home at noon, she just happened to mention it. Right away I smelled a rat, and I hustled into town and went right down to Manners’ office. I ain't saying I’d have arrested him if he'd been there, but I was going to question him. I was too late and missed him. They said he'd gone out of town on the eleven o'clock train, and nobody seemed to know where he'd gone or when he was expected back.” “Probably he's just off on a business trip,” Tilt suggested, eager to allay Smithers’ suspicions, al- though himself vastly puzzled by the news. That Mrs. Manners herself should have unexpectedly gone on a journey was perplexing enough, but her send- ing for Ed to join her surely indicated that some- thing important must have happened. As he hur- ried homeward, he was hoping that Devan would be there when he arrived. There were many new developments that he wished to discuss with him. GROUND FOR SUSPICION 125 To his annoyance, on reaching home, the cook informed him that Devan had telephoned, saying that he might be a little late for dinner. Impa- tiently awaiting his guest's arrival, Tilt sat on the porch trying to assemble the new facts he had learned and to piece them together so as to make them mean something, but in vain. An inspiration came to him. He remembered the telephone number where Devan had reached Rose Addison. He would call her up and ask her about Paul Carew. Miss Addison herself answered his call. “Oh, Miss Addison,” he said. “This is Mr. Tilt, Bill Tilt of Rockmont — You met me 99 “Oh, yes, I remember you. Have you learned anything new? Have you found the man who did it?” - “No, but there's something I wanted to ask you. How long have you known Mr. Carew?” “Carew — I don't know any one named Ca- rew.” “Paul Carew,” repeated Tilt, surprised. “You know him, don't you?” “Never heard of him in my life. Who is he?” GROUND FOR SUSPICION 127 it be that both he and Devan had been mistaken in her? Seven o'clock, the hour for dinner, came and went. Devan had not yet arrived. At seven-thirty Tilt, deciding to wait no longer for him and mindful of the engagement that he had made with Mollie to read her the will, ordered the cook to serve his dinner. To his annoyance there was still further delay, and it was nearly eight before the food was brought on the table. Wondering what could be keeping Devan, he sat down alone, hungry and out of temper with every- thing, and just then the telephone rang. Thinking of course it must be Devan, with further apologies for his tardiness, he sprang up to answer it. It was the telegraph operator at the station. “Telegram for William Tilt,” she announced. “This is Tilt. Go ahead,” he answered, half ex- pecting that it might be some word from Mrs. Manners or Ed. “It’s dated Stamford. ‘Gone to Boston on im- portant business.’ Signed “Dick.’” “All right,” he answered. “You understand it?” queried the operator. 128 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, as he hung up the 'phone and sat down to his chilling soup. He didn't understand it at all. First it was Mrs. Manners who had departed mysteriously, and then Ed and now Devan. What was happening? Surely he had a right to know. His friendship with the Manners family certainly should entitle him to their confidence. Besides, was he not the ex- ecutor of Walter Rhodes's will? That in itself, he reasoned, gave him a right to know all the moves that were being made in the case. But particularly with Devan did he feel exasper- ated. They had been working together, and he had told Devan everything he knew. “It was a dirty trick of Dick's,” he growled to himself, “to go off this way.” There were so many new angles de- veloping right here at home that demanded Devan's attention. There was the missing message that had been mailed to Mollie. There was Carew's strange con- duct, telling Mollie that he was going to Boston, and then not going. Then, too, what had Carew been doing in Miss Addison's company? And why had Miss Addison denied knowing Carew? GROUND FOR SUSPICION 129 As he pondered over all these unanswered ques- tions, vague alarm began to possess him. He re- called the certainty with which Smithers had ex- pressed the belief that the Manners family was in some way concerned in Walter Rhodes's death. Of course, the very idea was absurd, but — what could have been the mission that had taken them all to Boston? At any rate, he felt positive that Mollie knew nothing about it. Her mother more than likely was the custodian of the secret in Rhodes's life, and perhaps she had shared it with her son, but Mollie, he still felt confident, had been entirely frank with him. And as his thoughts turned to his conversa- tion with her, he hastily finished his solitary meal. She would be expecting him, and first he would have to stop at the doctor's house and get the will out of the safe. Fortunately he had the combination. John Dixon had turned over to him as executor the slip containing the figures. Stopping only long enough to get the figures out of his desk, he set out for Rhodes's house. As he neared a corner where he would turn into the lane leading to the house, he saw advancing 130 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB through the gathering darkness a slender figure and would have passed it by, had not a hand reached out and clutched his arm. “Oh, Bill,” cried a voice gleefully, “I’m so glad I met you.” He groaned inwardly. It was the Terrible Kit. “You remember,” she cried excitedly, “that mes- sage I told you we got. I've just been over to Gertie Small's house, and we’ve had another one — another message.” “Tommyrot,” exclaimed Tilt. “I haven't any time to listen to such nonsense. Run along home.” “Where are you going? I'll go with you,” said Kit calmly, falling into step beside him. “I’ve got to tell somebody about it, and as we told you about the other message, you just must listen to this.” “You can't come. I’m going over to Doctor Rhodes's house to get some papers.” “Why shouldn't I? There's nobody there now but old Mrs. Grady.” “All right, come on then,” said Tilt crossly, know- ing from experience that it would be hard to shake off the Terrible Kit if once she made up her mind GROUND FOR SUSPICION 131 to accompany him. “Fire away — what was the message this time?” “Now remember,” warned Kit gravely, “you promised the last time not to laugh at us, and you did. I hate you for it, but I've got to tell it. It sounds dreadfully important.” “Fire away. I promise not to laugh.” “Well, I was over at Gertie's house and there was nobody there but us and we were talking about the murder and all at once an uncanny feeling came over us. It was just as if some one was trying to talk to us and couldn’t. We both felt a presence, just as plain. We didn't have a ouija board there — Gertie's mother burned hers up—but we both of us just knew there was somebody there trying to talk to us — to tell us something.” “And what did you do?” asked Tilt, his curiosity aroused in spite of his disbelief. “We got a pad and paper and Gertie took a pencil in her hand and then we turned out the lights. I put my hand around her wrist and held it and we both sat there waiting — waiting. By and by it seemed as if we could feel the Presence nearer and nearer and we got all tingly and it was all we could 132 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB do to keep from shrieking. Then something hap- pened.” “What was it? What happened?” “All at once the pencil in Gertie's hand began to move. She tried to hold it still but the power kept moving it and moving it all over the paper. We both of us sat there just too scared to breathe and all at once it stopped. We just sat there terrified for ever and ever so long and by and by I got up courage enough to turn on the lights.” Kit lowered her voice to a mysterious whisper. “And we read the message.” “What did it say?” “Scrawled all over the paper in funny looking writing — it didn't look a bit like either Gertie's or mine — were the words, “find the girl,” “find the girl * — just that and nothing else.” “And what do you think it means?” Tilt asked, mentally determining that as soon as Kit's mother came home she should be informed about these nerve-wracking venturings of Kit's into the spirit world. “I don't know,” said Kit impressively. “You remember the other message about Paul Carew. GROUND FOR SUSPICION 133 Gertie and I have decided that in some way Paul and some girl are mixed up in the case. If only we could find the girl, maybe we could solve the mys- tery. You will help us, won't you, Bill?” As they talked, they had come close to the Rhodes house, passing between two tall rows of poplars that marked the path to the front door. The front of the building, with the blinds tightly drawn, presented a gloomy and forbidding aspect, reminiscent in its very appearance of the tragedy that had befallen its late occupant. “Let’s go round to the back door,” suggested Kit. “We'll probably find Mrs. Grady in the kitchen.” With Kit still hanging on to his arm, he made his way around the side of the house. As he did so, a ray of light coming from a side window of the front room caught his eye, and stopping quickly, he detected the movement of some one in the room. “There's a man in there,” whispered Kit. His own first impression confirmed, they both crept softly up to the window for a better view, for the blind here had been drawn to, leaving only a scant inch at the bottom. Curiously they peered into the room, wondering 134 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB who the man was and what business he could have at this hour in a house supposed now to be tenanted only by the old housekeeper. “Oh, look,” cried Kit in a tense whisper. “He’s trying to open the safe.” 136 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB second he stood there stupidly, watching the man at the safe, then came the galvanizing thought that something must be done about it — at once. “Quick,” he whispered to Kit. “We’ve got to capture him. We'll slip around to the back of the house. Probably he got in that way. Maybe he has left the door there open for his get away. You stand guard there, and I'll slip in and nab him.” “Oh, Bill,” moaned Kit in a scared whisper, as they ran, “I’m scared. Maybe he'll — he'll kill you.” “Nonsense,” said Tilt. “I’ll grab him before he knows I’m there.” “But — but—there may be two of them,” blub- bered the terrified youngster. “Oh, Bill, please, please, let's go for help.” “And let him get away,” scoffed Bill. “I’ll take the chance that he is alone.” Though far from being anything of a coward, Kit's suggestion that there might be more than one of the burglars had for a second given Tilt some- thing of a shock, and he found himself vainly wish- ing that he had a revolver with him. He realized that he would have to trust to a A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER 137 surprise attack. The glimpse he had had through the window had revealed a tall, powerful, roughly dressed figure, with a dark hat or cap pulled well down over his eyes. And there might be two, but he must take a chance. Gathering wrath at this in- truder, this robber who was planning to plunder Mollie of her fortune, seemed to add to his strength. He wanted to get his hand around the fellow's neck, to strangle him, to punish him for his temerity. As they reached the porch in the rear, they found the kitchen door standing wide open, which was almost to be expected. It was quite within possi- bilities that Mrs. Grady might have gone off to the village and left it that way. Half the people in Rockmont went to bed at night leaving their doors and windows unlocked, such was their confidence in the peace and quiet of the little colony. “Stand here and keep your eyes open,” he whis- pered to the trembling Kit, as he shook off her clutch- ing hand and slipped noiselessly in at the kitchen door. The room was in darkness. For an instant he stood there stock-still, listening but hearing no sound, trying to visualize the arrangement of the rooms in the house. In the left corner, as he re- 138 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB called it, there was a door that led into a butler's pantry, which opened into the dining room. Be- tween the dining room and the room where the burglar was ran a wide hall. Noiselessly but swiftly he crept through the kitchen, cautiously pushing open the swinging door of the pantry and holding it so that it would make no sound behind him. On through the dining room, step by step, he advanced, feeling his way, his pres- ence still undiscovered. As he reached the hall, the door into which stood open, he became aware of a dim light ahead, apparently a reflection from the pocket flashlight the burglar was using. Poised on tiptoe, he paused again to listen. He could hear a slight sliding sound, the noise made by the burglar as he turned the safe knob this way and that on the dial, seeking the click that would give him the clue to the combination. Still Tilt listened, straining his ears to catch the sound of breathing, wondering not without trepidation if in the darkness ahead of him there was one man — or two. Apparently there was only one, and with a feeling of relief, he moved once more swiftly for- ward. A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER 139 Still unnoticed by the burglar, he reached the door- way of the room where the man was at work. Tilt, from where he stood, could see the man plainly now, still on his knees, intent on the safe before him, the radiating rays of his flashlight making a murky halo about him, although all the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness. Crouching with muscles tensed, gauging the dis- tance with his eye, Tilt sprang for him, - only to come crashing to the floor with a terrifying racket. He had come to grief on a small tabouret that the burglar, as a precaution against being surprised, had thoughtfully placed between the scene of his activ- ities and the doorway. Instantly the flash went out. Tilt, as he strug- gled desperately to regain his footing, heard a mut- tered oath from the burglar and a frightened cry from Kit. Recovering himself as quickly as he could, he sprang to the door, intent on blocking the man's escape, but realized at once that he was too late, that the man had slipped by him in the darkness as he lay prostrate. He could hear the thud of running feet in the hallway, and he turned in pur- suit. 142 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB He found himself gazing into the black, limpid, frightened eyes of a pretty Italian girl, perhaps seventeen, whose great shock of hair, loosened in his struggle with her, had come tumbling about her chalky face. “Who was the man—that man who got away?” he demanded. “Why, Bill,” cried Kit, “I know this girl. It's Conchita.” As Kit recognized her, the girl, pulling her arm loose from Tilt's grasp, covered her face with her hands and began to weep audibly, violently. “Who's Conchita?” Tilt asked wonderingly. “She's old Marta's daughter. She lives down in the village. I went one year to the public school for a month or two, and she was in my class.” As Tilt looked at the weeping girl, his anger to- ward her vanished. After all, she was only a youngster, a mere child. If some evil-minded per- son had persuaded her to join in the burglary, she surely was far from being a hardened criminal. It would, he felt sure, be comparatively easy to learn from her all she knew about the attempted robbery. Soothingly he began to comfort her, and as she be- A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER 143 came calmer, to question her about her presence there. “I come to see Miss Grady,” she insisted. “I see a light in the house and a man there. I got scared and hide in the bushes.” Try as he could, that was all Tilt could get out of her, and she was firm in her denial that she knew who the man was, calling on the Virgin and all of the saints to attest that she was telling the truth. While he still was questioning her, Mrs. Grady ar- rived, out of breath, indignant, and much perplexed. With many an exclamation she listened wonderingly to Tilt's narrative of what had happened in her ab- Sence. “It's meself that was called away by the tili- phone,” she explained volubly. “Nora Dolan — her that lives at the other end of the village and used to be Father Riley's housekeeper — my own cousin once removed, was hurted, so they said, and was asking for me.” “Who said it?” asked Tilt eagerly. “Who called you on the 'phone?” “It was a man’s voice — the doctor, he said he was — and he said Nora was hurted bad, and when A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER 145 fronted him was what to do with the securities in the safe. He had made up his mind, after listening to Mrs. Grady's story, that it was unsafe to leave them where they were, even for a single night longer. But where could he find a safe place to put them at this hour of the night? Ah, the station-master's strong box at the station! That was the very place for them. Right now he would seal them up in a package and take them over there and leave them. In the morning he would take them into the city with him and place them in a safe-deposit box. Wonderingly the Terrible Kit watched him as he opened the safe. One document only he left out of the parcel, - the will. That he slipped into his pocket to show to Mollie. “What's that paper?” asked Kit curiously. “What are you going to do with that?” “That is Doctor Rhodes's will,” he explained. “He made me his executor.” It was none of Kit's business, he felt, and ordi- narily he would have told her so, but somehow the exciting events they had been through together 146 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB seemed to have brought them into closer and more mutually appreciative relations. After all, Kit was a game little thing, even if she always were telling him that she hated him. “Who'd he leave his money to?” “I can't tell you that. It's a secret.” “Do you suppose that was why he was killed — because of the way he left his money?” questioned Kit, her vivid imagination already at work. She just revelled in mysteries. “No, of course not,” said Bill bluntly, but as he trudged over to the station, with Kit still sticking at his side, her question turned his thoughts in a new direction. Was it possible, he wondered, that the doctor's will had supplied the motive for his murder? There might have been some one who had expected to in- herit his wealth, and learning of his intention to leave everything to Mollie Manners, had made away with him in an effort to thwart his plans. Perhaps the murderer, learning too late that the will already had been signed, had made a desperate attempt to open the safe in order to destroy it. Tilt cursed himself for the stupid way in which he had permitted A MYSTERIOUS INTRUDER 147 the burglar to escape unidentified. If he could only identify the man, he might be in a position to solve the murder. But who was there who could have hoped to have profited by Rhodes's death? It must have been some relative. But what relatives had he except that mysterious wife from whom he had been sep- arated for so many years? It might have been her — or her child. That child must be a man grown by now. The longer he pondered over this theory, the more probable it seemed to be. If only there were some one with whom he could discuss it — Devan, for in- stance. If Mrs. Manners would only return and tell him what she knew of the secret in Rhodes's life, he began to feel confident that he quickly could locate the murderer. The doctor's child — that's who it must have been! His precious parcel safely deposited with the sta- tion-master, he walked back with Kit to her home. “What do you know about Conchita?” he asked. “She's a bad girl,” answered Kit promptly. “What do you mean?” “She had a baby, and she isn't married,” Kit CHAPTER X AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT TILT found Mollie waiting for him, not in her accustomed corner on the porch, but in her mother's den, his arrival thus bringing to him the bitter thought that no longer was his presence welcome in the hallowed cosy corner. That was now Carew's. “Sorry to be late,” he said stiffly, his manner re- flecting his inward resentment of the situation. “It took me longer than I expected to get the papers. Here’s the will.” “It doesn’t matter,” said the girl, apparently un- observant of his frigidity, as she eagerly took from his extended hand the document that gave her a fortune. As she sat there, reading it line for line, Tilt sat cogitating whether or not to tell her of the attempted burglary. After all, he reasoned, what was the use of worrying her about it? With her mother and Ed both away and Kit to manage, with the recent AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 151 tragedy still fresh in her mind, why should he add to her worries by telling her of the encounter he had just had? There were other reasons. Inclined to be a little vain about his physical strength, Tilt was not at all certain that the outcome redounded to his credit. In the first place, he felt that it had been decidedly careless of him to leave the securities that had been entrusted to him as executor wholly unguarded in that old-fashioned safe. That they all might have been stolen, had he and Kit not arrived at such a fortuitous moment, was an appalling thought. In the second place, he was vastly vexed with himself for having let the burglar escape. The telling of it could hardly present him in any other than a ridic- ulous light. Even though Mollie now was engaged to another man, he hesitated at a recital of facts that would give her cause to laugh at him. Besides, what could be accomplished by telling about the burglary? Before leaving Rhodes's house he had warned the old housekeeper to hold her tongue, and there was little likelihood of the Italian girl telling about it. Kit, too, he felt sure, would say nothing. Whatever other faults she might 152 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB have, Tilt knew she was close-mouthed and not at all given to taking the other members of the family into her confidence. He recalled that on the way home she had spoken of the incident as one of the “secrets” she shared with him. Manifestly she had taken it for granted that he did not wish it talked about. There was another matter that Tilt was thinking of as Mollie pored over the will, something that still was bothering him very much. Ought he not to let Mollie know that her fiancé was deceiving her? Was it not his duty, the duty of their long-estab- lished friendship, to tell her and put her on her guard? If Carew were in the habit of lying to her and deceiving her now, before their marriage, it surely augured ill for her future happiness. Mollie was a wonderful girl — too wonderful, Tilt de- cided, to be permitted to bestow her affections on a man without being certain that he was worthy of her trust. He must find some way to tell her — to warn her — even at the risk of cheapening himself. Just then she looked up from the paper she was reading with her dark eyes brimming with tears. AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 153 “What a dear he was,” she murmured. “To think of his leaving me everything he had. Do you know, Bill, I always had the feeling that he cared more for me than for any other person on earth.” “It looks that way. I haven't checked things up yet, but he must have had over a million.” “It isn't the money I care about. It's the thought of it — that he wanted me to have it.” “There are two things, though, about that will that puzzle me,” said Tilt. “I can't understand why he should have made me the executor; and there's another funny thing — did you notice the date?” “What about it?” said Mollie, consulting the paper to see when it was dated. “That will was drawn the very day after your engagement to Carew was announced.” “That certainly is peculiar — very peculiar,” said Mollie thoughtfully. “I can't understand that. Do you know, Bill, I'm going to tell you something I have never breathed to a soul. Doctor Rhodes didn’t like Paul Carew. I learned of it when I told him of our engagement.” “What did he say?” 154 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “That was the strange part of it. He didn't say a word but just stood looking at me in a sorrowful way. It looked to me as if the news had been a great shock to him. “Aren't you going to wish me happiness?’ I asked him. “Would that I could,” he answered, and then he turned and walked away and never spoke to me again about it. There was only one way that I could account for it. I felt that he must have loved me very dearly himself, and the idea of my marrying any one else was almost too much for him.” “Maybe it wasn't that. Perhaps he didn't trust Carew.” - “Why? What do you mean?” cried Mollie, bridling at once. “Have you always found him trustworthy?” “Why, of course I have. What a silly question. Paul Carew is the soul of honor.” “He told you last night, didn't he,” said Tilt, not without a vicious feeling of joy, “that he was going on the midnight train to Boston?” “Yes. What of it?” “What would you think if I told you that he did not go — that not ten minutes after I had left you AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 155 this morning I saw him riding up Sixth Avenue in a taxicab — with a woman?” “I’d say,” cried Mollie proudly, “that either you were entirely mistaken, or else that you were lying deliberately — trying to make trouble between Paul and me.” “I am not lying,” said Tilt tensely, casting cau- tion to the winds. “I did see him. I know the woman he was with.” The angry red that colored the girl's cheeks should have warned him on what dangerous ground he was treading, but he blundered on: “Mollie, you know how much I always have thought of you. You know I wouldn't tell you this sort of thing if I didn't feel that you ought to be warned. It isn't as if you had known Carew all your life, as you have me. He's a comparative newcomer here. Nobody knows much about him, in fact, except that he has been coming out here for a couple of summers.” “Stop!” cried the girl wrathfully, rising and con- fronting him. “How dare you come here to my house to tell me those lies about Paul?” “It is because I love you,” cried Tilt, in despera- AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 1.57 > “Oh, Paul,” cried Mollie, greeting him with out- stretched arms, “I’m so glad you've come. Bill Tilt has been trying to make me believe dreadful things about you.” “What's this?” cried Carew, giving a nervous start. “What things?” “I merely told her,” Tilt hastened to explain, “certain things that I know to be facts. I told her that you had not gone to Boston. That I myself had seen you this morning riding up Sixth Avenue in a taxicab.” Carew, it seemed to Tilt, wavered for just a moment before replying, and then, turning toward Mollie, he said with studied calmness: “What he says is perfectly true. I did not go to Boston last night. When I got back to my rooms, I found a letter there which made the trip unneces- sary. That's the reason I came over to-night, to explain it to you. And it is also perfectly true that I rode up Sixth Avenue in a taxicab this morning. Tilt may have seen me, although I didn't see him.” “But, Paul,” cried Mollie, the angry glare coming once more into her eyes, “he said there was a woman 158 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB in the taxicab. You weren't with a woman, were you?” “It seems to me,” said Carew stiffly, “that Mr. Tilt has been concerning himself a great deal with affairs that are none of his business.” “But,” persisted Mollie, her voice rising shrilly, “he said you had a woman in the cab. He said he knew who the woman was.” At this statement, it seemed to Tilt that Carew's face suddenly paled. At any rate, he gave a violent Start. - -- “That also is true,” he stammered. “I was with Miss Addison, Rose Addison, whom Doctor Rhodes employed as his office attendant.” - “Perhaps,” interjected Tilt maliciously, “you can also explain why you gave Miss Addison a false name, why you told her that you were Mr. Ray- mond — Mr. Raymond from the Trust Com- pany.” Tilt, turning to watch the effect of this shot on Mollie, read in her face the first sign of doubt that he had seen there. With pitiful anxiety she leaned forward to hear Paul's words. Tilt felt that now he was about to be vindicated, and that his last AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 1.59 s question would be no easy matter for Carew to clear up, but he counted his triumph too soon. “While I must protest against this interference of Mr. Tilt in my affairs,” said Carew, giving his rival a glance of hatred, “it is all easily explained. Knowing how interested Mollie was in trying to solve the mystery of Doctor Rhodes's death, I have undertaken an investigation of it. Naturally one of the persons likely to have valuable information about the doctor's private affairs was the nurse who was in his office every day. I located her, and as a ruse to try to get her confidence, I told her that I was Mr. Raymond from the Trust Company.” He turned apologetically to Mollie. “I have told you nothing of this, dearest, because I wanted to clear the whole thing up and surprise you. I knew how much it was worrying you.” “There,” cried Mollie vindictively, “I told you Paul was perfectly trustworthy. Even you, Bill Tilt, with your evil mind, must admit that he has explained everything satisfactorily.” “Yes,” admitted Bill, not at all enthusiastically, “he has explained it.” “And,” cried Mollie, her voice rising once more AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 161 Mollie, his friend, his pal, his ideal, in Mollie, the girl whom he had been so confident that he loved, in that moment of anger had been revealed to him in her eyes, her voice, her manner, an evil, uncon- trollable, murderous temper that he never dreamed she had possessed. Never again, he told himself sadly, could he look upon her with the same feeling. The mantle of sanctity, of sweetness, of perpetual charm somehow had been stripped from her. Al- ways, always, no matter what their future relations might be, he would remember and know that some- where deep within her lay a stratum of evil, of hate. It came over him that he was wretchedly alone, that there was no one for whom he cared, or who cared for him. He was nothing but a blundering fool. He was just what Mollie had called him, “a great big clumsy lummax,” always doing things the wrong way, always putting his foot in it. Rhodes at least had trusted him and had made him his executor. Surely that was a proof of friendship, but now Rhodes was dead — murdered. In an unwonted mood of self-analysis, he sat there alone on the porch of the deserted clubhouse, 162 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB feeling strangely depressed and abased. He had considered Ed Manners a friend, yet at the inquest it was Ed who had tried to throw on him the sus- picion of having destroyed or secreted the note that Rhodes had been writing. He had looked on Mrs. Manners with almost the same affection as upon his own mother, yet when he had asked her a simple question about Rhodes's marriage, she had acted most peculiarly and had refused him her confidence. And Mollie — almost as far back as he could re- member, he and Mollie had been the best of pals, yet when he had tried to do her a friendly act, she had turned venomously on him. Was he a failure in life? What was there about him that was at fault; what failing in character or personality, he wondered, made them hold his friend- ship so lightly? As morosely he meditated over what had happened, he felt a light touch on his sleeve, and turning with a start, discovered in the moonlight a slender figure beside him, - the Ter- rible Kit. “Oh, Bill,” she whispered sympathetically, “wasn't it rotten — perfectly rotten, the way they talked to you?” AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT 163 “Where were you?” he demanded suspiciously, at the same time conscious of an unusual feeling of warmth toward her. “At the head of the stairs — listening,” she an- swered unshamedly. “A nice, ladylike thing to do,” he rebuked her. “Pooh!” scoffed Kit, “manners don't count when you are trying to solve a mystery. I wanted to find out what was in Doctor Rhodes's will and why you brought it over to show to Mollie. I saw you when you picked it out from the other papers and slipped it into your pocket.” “Humph!” snapped Tilt. “And you heard everything that was said, I suppose.” “Not quite everything,” said Kit regretfully, “ though I came down a few steps when things got hot. I wish I could have seen Paul Carew's face when he was talking. I wanted to see if he was lying.” “Oh, bosh,” said Tilt, trying to be fair, “I guess I went off half-cocked. The explanations he gave sounded all right.” “Too much all right,” commented Kit. 164 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Well, anyhow,” said Tilt, “I put my foot in it. Mollie has forbidden me the house.” - “Don’t you care. It's as much my house as it is hers. You can come to see me.” “I’m not apt to come where I’m not wanted.” “Well, Mother'll want you when she gets home, and it's her house,” Kit persisted. “Have you heard from your mother? When's she coming home?” Tilt asked, seeking to change the subject. “She’ll be home to-morrow. There was a tele- gram from her to-day.” “Well, in that case,” suggested Tilt, “you'd better be getting home and getting your beauty sleep, so that when she sees you, she won't think that you've been up to any mischief. Come on, I'll walk as far as the porch with you.” “I’m often up later than this,” Kit protested, nevertheless, in an acquiescent mood entirely foreign to her ordinary conduct, making no further argu- ment about it. Clinging to his arm she strolled back with him, saying nothing more until they were near- ing the house. Then she burst out with: “Say, Bill, did it strike you as funny that when 166 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “It's that girl again— it's Conchita,” cried Kit in surprise. At the sound of Kit's voice, the figure at the window turned with a start and fled noiselessly across the grass, leaving Tilt and Kit standing there dumbfounded, gazing blankly after her. “Bill,” breathed Kit excitedly, “I’ve just got to get my ouija board out again and ask about her. That girl knows something. I wonder what it can be?” “I wonder,” said Tilt, as he bade Kit good night and strode off toward home. CHAPTER XI A THEORY SHATTERED ALTHOUGH the first thing that Tilt did the next day was to hurry into the city with the securities of which he had been made custodian and place them in a safe-deposit box, his action brought him neither a sense of security nor of relief. Each day's de- velopments added to his conviction that the same evil mind that had contrived Rhodes's death still must be in some way plotting against the safety of those who had been most closely associated with Rhodes, – the Manners family and himself. In no other way could he account for the sequence of strange happenings. His quarrel with Mollie, too, hung over him like a black cloud. As he reviewed the incident with the clearer vision of the morning after, he found himself almost inclined to justify her actions. If she really loved Carew, she could hardly have done otherwise. It was stupid of him, without having A THEORY SHATTERED 169 her and Mrs. Grady's statement that she was a fre- quent visitor, had for the time allayed his sus- picions, yet his discovery of her spying two hours later on Mollie and Carew had instantly revived his worst thoughts about her. He was confident now that she had been the burglar's confederate and that she purposely had tripped him in order to enable the burglar to escape. But who was the burglar? - The fact of the girl's nationality suggested that the man whom he had seen attempting to open the safe might have been an Italian, too. There were a number of Italian families in the village. It might be that some one, Dixon or Pressly Hart, had gos- sipped about the doctor's wealth and had inspired the attempt at robbery, yet it seemed more logical to assume that the murder and burglary were links in the same chain. Recalling Devan's description of his method of work, Tilt began trying to fit all the facts that were known to him into a picture. Even if there had been a woman at the bottom of it, everything seemed to point to a man as the central figure in the picture. A man, according to Miss Addison's statements. 170 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB had come several times with secrecy to Doctor Rhodes's office, and they had heated arguments there. A man had telephoned to the doctor's house, and Rhodes had gone in the early morning, presumably to meet him. A man had shot him there; a woman would never have used a rifle. A man had tried to rob the doctor's safe, per- haps with the intention of stealing the bonds, per- haps in an effort to recover some document he be- lieved to be locked up there. Who was this man? That was the question Tilt kept vainly asking himself. What could have been his motive, – a motive sufficiently strong to cause him to commit a cold-blooded, deliberate murder, to attempt a daring robbery? Was he some Italian, as Conchita’s appearance in the case naturally suggested? To Tilt's way of thinking this did not seem probable. He could con- ceive of no reason that would induce Rhodes to go to the club at one in the morning to meet an Italian from the village. Who, then, could it have been? Was it, as both Devan and Smithers had suggested, 172 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB That child, Walter Rhodes's child, must be a grown man by now. His mother discredited and separated from the father, what would be more natural than that the son should grow up hating his father. There was no mention of this child in his will. Was it not more than probable that the son, arriving at maturity and learning of his father's prominence and of his wealth, should demand a share of it? It might have been he who had visited Rhodes in his office with such secrecy. Suppose, reasoned Tilt, this son, having learned that he was to be disinherited, after a final plea for recognition, in a rage had shot his father. Naturally the next step would be to destroy the will. At last Tilt was satisfied that he had a theory that would account both for the murder and for the burglary. But did it account for Conchita? It seemed not impossible that the son, secretly spying on his father, might have learned that Conchita visited the doctor's house and might have beguiled her into playing the spy for him. Confident that he at last was on the right track, Tilt hurried on home- ward. He must get in touch as soon as possible with the two persons who would know about this A THEORY SHATTERED 173 child. If Mrs. Manners were not home yet, he would see old Hodder and make him talk, but as he entered his home the telephone was ringing. It was Mrs. Manners. “Is that you, Bill?” she said. “Can I come over to see you? There are things — important things — I must tell you.” “I’ll wait for you,” he answered, though in his voice there was a shade of disappointment. Or- dinarily, Mrs. Manners, wishing to see him, would have asked him to go to her house. Mollie must already have told her of their quarrel, and appar- ently he still was on her black books. All day long he had been hoping against hope that the girl, her temper over, would be ready to forgive him, but seemingly she hadn't. Presently Mrs. Manners appeared, looking tired and worn. She carried a small traveling bag, from which, as she sat down, she drew forth a packet of papers. “You remember, Bill,” she said, “how startled I was when you asked me about Walter Rhodes's wife. f could not conceive how you could know about her.” 174 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “It was in the will,” Tilt began. “Yes, I know that now,” she interrupted. “Mollie told me about the will and told me that he had made you his executor, but of course I didn't know that then, and the mention of her brought a dread possibility to my mind. I had not thought before that it might have been her — that she might have escaped -> “Escaped,” echoed Tilt amazedly. “Yes,” explained Mrs. Manners, “Walter Rhodes's wife for years has been in a private sani- tarium near Boston, hopelessly insane — with homi- cidal mania. It's the saddest story you ever heard.” “Tell me about it,” cried Tilt excitedly, feeling sure now that Mrs. Manners’ revelations would support the theory he had formed of the murder. “Walter Rhodes and my husband,” she began, “first met at the Naval Academy when they were cadets and became the closest of friends. My hus- band left the service soon after graduating to earn a salary that would enable him to marry, but Walter stayed and became a lieutenant commander. Some- where down in the West Indies, during the Spanish War, he met a beautiful, auburn-haired Irish girl 176 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB an operation to remove the bone that was pressing on his brain, and his reason was restored. “Meanwhile his wife had disappeared. My hus- band, on hearing that Walter was alive, made sev- eral trips to Boston to try to locate her but without success. We employed detectives but could find no trace of her. She had sold off everything in the cottage and had vanished with the child. As soon as Walter was able to travel, he came home under the care of a boatswain's mate, Malachi Hodder, whose enlistment had just expired — that’s old Malachi, who looks after the boats.” “Yes, I know,” said Tilt. “At the inquest he spoke of Rhodes as ‘the Commander.’” “Walter, taking Hodder with him, spent weeks and weeks traveling about, trying to find his wife. At last he located her and found her married to an- other man. There was a dreadful scene. She was the type of woman who seems to inspire violent passion in men. Her new husband loved her madly, and learning that their marriage was ille- gal, killed himself. She became a raving maniac and tried to kill Walter. Old Hodder saved his life. A THEORY SHATTERED 177 “Probably there was insanity in her blood. We never knew. Even Walter had learned little of her history or parentage, but from that day to this she has been hopelessly insane. An uncle of Walter's, dying about this time, left him a fortune, and he put it all in trust for her, arranging through a trust company in Boston that she should have the best of care in a private sanitarium run by a Mrs. Sophie Karuski, just outside Boston. Ever since she has had every comfort that money could provide, special nurses of her own day and night and the best medical attention, though Walter, I believe, never saw her again after she attempted his life. “He resigned from the navy and in an effort to forget his troubles took up the study of medicine and quickly made a reputation as a skilful surgeon. I do not think through all these years he ceased to love her. He seemed to find some comfort in re- lieving the sufferings of others, having himself suf- fered so deeply. Although I doubt if he ever knew happiness, after he had come out here to Rockmont to be near us, he seemed more content. It all hap- pened long ago, and as he never spoke of her even to us, I had almost forgotten her existence until your 178 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB question the other evening suggested the possibility of her having been the murderer. “After you had gone, I lay awake all night. There seemed to be only one way that I could satisfy myself that it was not she who had done it. Early the next morning I talked with old Hodder, and we decided that the best thing for me to do was to go to the sanitarium and make certain that she had not escaped. When I saw her, I knew there was no possibility of her having done it. Even if Mrs. Karuski had not assured me that she had never been outside the sanitarium walls, her physical condition is such as to make it out of the question. She is very feeble, and for months she has not left her bed, but lies there day and night, moaning incoherently. “While I was there, the question came to my mind whether the doctor's death would require any new arrangements with the trust company, and I sent for Ed to come up. Since my husband's death, he is the only one who knows anything of the matter. And now, tell me, what have they dis- covered? Have they arrested any one yet for the murder?” “Not yet,” said Tilt, “but there will be an arrest 184 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Anyhow,” said Hart, his manner becoming more assertive, “I don't like the way things are going. As long as this mystery is unsolved, our club is un- der a sort of a cloud. And what's more, I think the Manners family have been acting most pecul- iarly.” “What do you mean?” asked Tilt anxiously. Even if he and Mollie were no longer friends and he had been forbidden the house, he was determined that the family should not be gossiped about if it were in his power to prevent it. “It was Dixon here who first called my atten- tion to it. You tell him, Dixon, what you told me.” “Everybody knows,” explained Dixon, “that the Manners family and Doctor Rhodes were very good friends. They were the closest friends he had in the colony. The three of us here know that Rhodes left all his money to Mollie Manners, I merely said to Hart that under the circumstances it was damned queer Mrs. Manners didn't attend the funeral. Only the two girls and Ed were there.” “Mrs. Manners was away,” Tilt put in promptly. “Yes, but why did she go away just then? MISSING – A MOTIVE 185 Where'd she go? Ed Manners went away, too, right afterward. He's still away.” “That's it,” cried Pressly Hart excitedly. “That's it. Ed Manners' conduct certainly ought to be looked into. Just between ourselves, I believe he knows who did it, if he didn't do it himself. His mother knows about it. That's why she has hidden him away somewhere.” “Oh, bosh, Hart,” cried Tilt. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Ed Manners is no murderer. It’s absurd.” “Hold on,” said Dixon. “He has acted strangely about the case. You can’t have forgotten how at the inquest he tried to throw suspicion on you. He certainly did his best to make people be- lieve it was you who had taken and secreted that message the doctor was writing when he was shot. What was his purpose in doing that? I’m free to say that I suspected him right from the start.” - “It was not he who took that slip of paper,” Tilt insisted. “I’m positive of it.” He spoke with such conviction that both of his callers turned to regard him suspiciously, wonder- 186 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB ing if there was anything he knew which they did not. “Who took it, if he didn't?” asked Dixon. “You know?” challenged Hart. “I don't know who took it. I know I didn't. I'm equally positive that Ed didn't. He couldn't have.” Tilt was sorry now that he had said as much as he had, but he could not help wondering what they would say and think if they knew that right at this very minute he had the slip of paper they were talk- ing about in his wallet, in the envelope in which Mollie had received it. He had kept it, exactly as she had handed it to him on the train, for the pur- pose of showing it to Devan. Pressly Hart sat picking nervously at a leaf on one of the porch vines and then burst out: “There's only one way I see to bring the thing into the open. Tilt, as executor, you must file your papers at once and make the will public. You must let people know that the Manners family are hooked up in it.” “What good would that do?” objected Tilt. “It would only start up a lot of talk.” ----- 188 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB mind to spread the news, there was little use in try- ing to stop him. The burden of keeping the secret was already weighing too heavily upon him. A small-minded man, delighting in petty glories, Hart was eager to shine among his neighbors as he re- lated the story of what they had found in the Rhodes safe. Tilt had another reason for agreeing so readily to the proposal. At any minute he was expecting Rose Addison to arrive, and he wished to be rid of his callers before she came. For several days he had been trying to get into communication with her, but it appeared that, left without an occupation by the death of Rhodes, she had gone back to private nursing. When he had called up her apartment, all that he had been able to learn was that she was “out on a case.” Hoping a letter might be forwarded, he had written to her, and only the evening before had come a wire from her saying that she would be out to see him Sunday morning. To his annoyance, both Hart and Dixon lingered, discussing the mystery in all its aspects, both of them apparently intent on assembling all the known facts and many more conjectures of their own in such a 190 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB pointing to Ed as the guilty person. Although, as time after time he assembled these strange circum- stances and tried to interpret them, the mystery seemed only to grow deeper and more confusing, Tilt had made up his mind to tell the whole story to only one person — Richard Devan, even though Devan's unexplained absence was as perplexing and annoying to him as it was to Hart. At last, to his relief, his callers rose to go. “It's agreed then,” said Hart, “that you'll file the papers and make the will public to-morrow.” “Certainly I’ll do it, since you and Mr. Dixon advise it,” Tilt hastily agreed, eager to obviate any further argument. He watched them with relief as they left the porch and vanished around the corner not five minutes before Miss Addison arrived. “I’m sorry,” she apologized; “I couldn't get here any sooner. I didn't get your note until last night. You know how it is in my profession. When we get a case, our time is seldom our own. Have you found the murderer?” - “No,” said Tilt, “we are still as much in the dark as ever, and Devan, who is making the in- vestigation, is away, but there is something I wished 192 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “I saw you riding up Sixth Avenue with him in a taxicab.” “That wasn't Paul Carew,” she exclaimed in astonishment. “I told you that was a man from the Trust Company where Doctor Rhodes had an account.” “Are you positive?” “Why, of course. At least, when he looked me up and said he was from the Trust Company, I took his word for it.” “Did he give you his card?” “No. He called me on the 'phone first and made an appointment to meet me. He said he was Mr. —” she hesitated for a moment, as if trying to recall the name – “Mr. Raymond of the Trust Company.” “What did he want with you?” “He explained that the Trust Company had charge of the doctor's affairs and asked me if I could accompany him to the office and let him in to look over the papers there.” “And did you?” “I supposed, of course, that it was all right; I knew the doctor had had an account there. I went 194 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “I can't understand it, either. He told Miss Manners that he was trying to make an investiga- tion of the mystery, and that he thought among the doctor's papers he might find some clue.” “Why was he investigating?” “He told her that it was because he knew she was worrying about the murder, and he wanted to get it cleared up.” “Well, I must say,” the nurse commented, “it seems to me a mighty funny way to go about it, taking an assumed name and everything.” “That's exactly the way it struck me,” said Tilt, “but his story seems to fit with yours. Anyhow, his explanation seemed to entirely satisfy Miss Manners.” Rose Addison shook her head doubtfully, and for a moment or two they sat there pondering over the explanation that Carew had given. Although, now that he had heard Miss Addison's version of it, Tilt was compelled to admit that Carew's explanation seemed logical, he still was inclined to believe that there was something fishy about it, and he was sure that Miss Addison agreed with him. As he sought to analyze Carew's actions, he wondered if his feel- MISSING – A MOTIVE 197 “Devan says he knows who did it, but he won't tell until he establishes the motive.” “I wonder whom he means?” said the nurse thoughtfully. “I wonder whom it could have been?” “I haven't the slightest idea,” admitted Tilt. “I’m all balled up about the thing. Anyhow, he'll be here to-morrow, and I'll make him tell us every- thing. He has it all cleared up but the motive, and if he knows who did it, that ought to be easy to establish.” “The motive,” said Miss Addison, as if thinking aloud. “That's going to be the hardest part of it. What motive — what possible motive could any one have for murdering such a man as Walter Rhodes?” CHAPTER XIII A NEW ALLIANCE “BUT Dick,” Tilt protested half-angrily to Devan, “it isn't fair. Here I have told you everything that has happened while you were away, and there was a lot, and you haven't told me a thing. You're as silent as a clam about what you learned in Boston. You might at least tell me who it is that you sus- pect.” “No, Bill,” his friend replied. “It isn't fair of you to ask me. Murder is too grave a charge to make against any one until the proof is absolute.” “But you persist in saying that you know the murderer.” “That is correct,” said Devan, with provoking calmness. “I told you my method. I have as- sembled all the facts about the murder that I have been able to gather. The completed picture indi- cates only one person. It is the sort of person who might have done such a crime. There was plenty A NEW ALLIANCE 199 of opportunity for this particular person to have done it. But one important detail in the picture is missing. So far as I have been able to discover, this person had no motive to commit such a crime. That's the puzzling part of it. Before I say any- thing, before I accuse any one, I must establish a plausible motive for the murder.” “Tell me this much — was it an Italian?” “I think I can answer that. The person who killed Rhodes was not an Italian.” “Then,” cried Tilt disappointedly, “you don't think that little Italian girl, Conchita, is mixed up in it?” “I’m positive that this girl had nothing whatever to do with the murder.” “But the burglary — the attempt to rob Rhodes's safe. You've got to admit she was concerned in that. She tripped me up. I don't care what you say, I know she did it to let the burglar get away. And remember, I caught her afterward spying on the Rhodes house.” “If you are so certain that she knows about the murder, why don't you hunt her up and tax her With it?” 200 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “Well, at least you'll admit that the burglar and the murderer must have been the same per- son.” “I haven't gone into that phase of it yet,” Devan replied, “but I hardly think it likely.” “Damn it,” cried Tilt, “I am going to get hold of that girl and make her talk. If you don't watch out, I’ll solve this mystery and have the murderer in jail while you still are hunting a motive.” “Go ahead,” said Devan calmly. “I’m going over to have another chat with Mrs. Manners.” As his friend departed, Tilt flung himself angrily down in the porch hammock, feeling aggrieved with all the world. He had counted confidently on learn- ing from Devan the result of his investigations, but Devan, since his return from Boston, had been per- sistently reticent about everything. He still was apparently busy all day long on the case, but most of his evenings he now spent at the Manners home, talking it over with Mrs. Manners and Mollie, and with Ed and Paul Carew, when they happened to be there. The privilege of sharing in these conversa- tions was denied to Tilt, for Mollie still was relent- less in her attitude toward him. Mrs. Manners, it 208 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB face ablaze with excitement, was holding up the envelope under the light and with it another piece of paper. “Look, look, Bill!” she exclaimed. “It’s the same writing.” Wonderingly, Tilt snatched the two pieces of paper from her hand and examined them. On the envelope Mollie had given him was her name and address scrawled in a childish, untrained hand. On the other paper was written the words, “Miss Mollie Curran” and an address. Unquestionably the handwriting was the same. The “M” that was used in both was the same ill- made capital. The same badly formed, irregular 1etters, the same uphill slope appeared in each. “Where'd you get this?” he asked eagerly. “Whose writing is it?” “It's Conchita's,” said Kit. “They are the same, aren't they?” “You bet they are,” said Tilt jubilantly. “Kit, you're a wonder. How'd you ever get it?” “When you showed me that envelope, that writ- ing looked sort of familiar, and I kept thinking and thinking and trying to remember where I had seen 210 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB Could it be that the child had been jealous of his attentions to Mollie? Tilt shot a quick look at Kit as she stood there under the light, and caught his breath. He always had thought of her as just a child, an awkward, bothersome youngster, all legs and arms; but as he looked at her now, her bobbed black hair shining under the light, her eyes sparkling with excitement, her parted lips revealing two regu- lar rows of beautiful white teeth, her tanned cheeks reddening under his gaze, he realized suddenly that right under his nose she had grown up, that she was almost a woman, and more than that, that she al- ready was a ravishing little beauty. “Well, anyhow,” she said, letting her eyes drop confusedly, “we’ve got the goods on Conchita, haven’t we, Bill?” “We certainly have. There's no question that it must have been she who mailed that scrap of paper to Mollie. But the devil of it is, how did she get hold of it, and why did she mail it to Mollie?” “I know,” said Kit confidently. “The man who did the murder, the same man that tried to get into the safe, is her lover. She must have been watch- A NEW ALLIANCE 213 believing what he read, Tilt scanned the original of the certificate, filed in Walter Rhodes's well-known hand. “Mother, Conchita Burreli, unmarried.” “Father (putative), Paul Carew.” 216 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB feared that the doctor might have left some written record that would betray his relations with Con- chita and forever bar him from marrying Mollie. Undoubtedly, Tilt decided, it had been Carew who was trying to open the doctor's safe, while Conchita stood guard. Failing to find any of the private papers at the office, he naturally would have planned to raid the safe, to make certain that it con- tained no evidence of his guilt. As Tilt recalled the figure he had seen kneeling before the safe, he wondered that he had not recognized it at once as Carew's. He recalled, too, that when Carew ap- peared a few minutes later at the Manners house, he was all out of breath, as if he had been running. Every single fact—even to the sight of Con- chita jealously peering through the window at Carew and Mollie — seemed to point to Carew's guilt. Detained from his office for several hours by his visit to the county seat, Tilt was much later than his usual time in leaving the office, and snatching a hasty bite at the station, caught a train that got him home a little after eight. He was eager to re- veal his amazing news to Devan and would have enjoyed crowing over him, but he felt that the news A PLAN THAT FAILED 217 was not rightfully his to proclaim. It surely be- longed to Kit to get all credit for solving the mys- tery. He must tell her first, before he told any one else. It was her shrewdness in getting the sample of Conchita's handwriting and her cleverness in sug- gesting the birth records be looked up that had sup- plied the missing clues. The news was Kit's—not his. When he reached home, he was surprised to find quite an assemblage there, — Pressly Hart, John Dixon and Chief of Police Smithers. Devan was there, too, busy splicing an extra receiver to the tele- phone in the living room. - “Hello, Bill,” said Devan. “You’re just in time. I was hoping you'd get here. We are just arranging a little test that I think will establish the identity of the man who murdered Doctor Rhodes.” “What is it?” asked Tilt wonderingly. “I’ll explain it a little later,” Devan replied, as he completed his arrangements and sat down with the group, “but first, gentlemen, I wish to tell a story, to explain what I was doing in Boston.” “It's about time you did,” interjected Hart. 218 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “As some of you know,” continued Devan, “Walter Rhodes had been an officer in the navy. He went to the Philippines just after the war with Spain and was reported killed there. Just before his departure he had married, and in his absence a child was born — a girl. Believing him dead, his wife remarried. Months afterward, he was found in a Filipino village, his memory gone from a blow on the head. Restored to health by an operation at Manila, as soon as he was able to travel, he re- turned to this country, escorted by old Hodder, the man who looks after your boats here, eager to find the wife of whom he had lost all trace. “After weeks of searching, he found her married to another man. Her second husband, in despair over the situation, committed suicide, and Mrs. Rhodes herself broke down under the strain. She became violently insane and tried to kill Rhodes, and old Hodder saved his life. Assured by medical advice that there was no hope of his wife ever re- covering her reason, Rhodes eventually placed her in a small private sanitarium just outside Boston, run by a couple named Karuski. He came into Some money about that time and placed it all in 22d TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB The son, learning of Rhodes's prosperity, turned up here in Rockmont.” “You don’t mean Paul Carew P” cried Hart. “Yes,” said Devan. “He had Americanized his name. I do not imagine Rhodes ever associated him with the sanitarium that so long had sheltered his wife.” “What did he want here? What did he come for?” asked Chief Smithers. “What his original idea may have been I do not know,” said Devan. “He may have had some idea of putting his knowledge to criminal use and black- mailing Rhodes. He must have known that Mollie was the doctor's daughter. Apparently, after look- ing over the situation, he decided that the easiest way to gain the Rhodes fortune would be to marry Mollie.” All the while Devan was talking, Tilt had sat listening in silence, regretting that Devan had con- sidered it necessary to tell the story of Mollie's par- entage. Presumably it was bound to come out be- fore the murder could be explained, but it seemed a pity to recite it in the presence of such an inveterate gossip as Pressly Hart. A PLAN THAT FAILED 221 “Yet,” continued Devan, “though many things point to Paul Carew or Karuski as the murderer of Rhodes, there is still one thing that puzzles me. Nothing that I have discovered seems to establish a motive, a motive sufficiently potent to make him commit a murder. His marriage to Miss Manners assured, he must have known that Rhodes sooner or later would leave the girl his fortune. It seems in- credible that he should have been so money hungry that he would risk disgrace and punishment to get in advance what was certain to be his wife's. While all these facts have been in my possession for a week, I have hesitated to tell them to you and have been spending night after night with Carew, hoping that he would in some way betray himself, but he seems to be on guard. “With a motive lacking, I hesitated to suggest his arrest, but finally I decided to lay the facts be- fore you and be guided by your judgment, after making one other test. You recall, gentlemen, that an hour before Rhodes was murdered, he was called to the telephone. Mrs. Grady talked with the per- son who called him. At nine o'clock to-night I have arranged for Paul Carew to call me here. Mrs. 222 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB Grady is waiting out in the kitchen. I propose to have her listen at this second receiver. If she recognizes the voice of Carew as the person who called up Rhodes that night, what do you say, gen- tlemen — should he be arrested?” “Sure, arrest him — the hound — coming around here under another name,” said Pressly Hart. “I would say, arrest him,” said Dixon. “I’m for it,” announced Chief Smithers. “And you, Tilt,” asked Devan, “what is your answer?” - “You can make no mistake in arresting Paul Carew,” said Tilt, speaking with confidence because of the discoveries that he and Kit had made, yet still keeping his knowledge to himself. Time enough to tell it, to explain the motive, when Carew had been arrested. Devan looked at his watch, and disappearing into the kitchen, returned with Mrs. Grady, whom he seated near the telephone. “Mrs. Grady,” he said, “you remember at the inquest that you told of some one having called Doctor Rhodes to the telephone after midnight, on the night he was killed.” A PLAN THAT FAILED 225 “Mr. Carew? It was not. Sure, I’d have known his voice any time.” She looked about her, gazing into their faces with sudden suspicion. “My God, it ain't him you're suspecting of killing the doctor?” “We suspect nobody,” said Devan in baffled tones, “we just wanted to make sure that it was not he who had called the doctor that night.” “It was not. I’ll swear to that,” said Mrs. Grady firmly. “It was a quare husky-sounding voice, a voice I never had heard before, I'm telling you.” “That will be all, Mrs. Grady,” said Devan, add- ing sternly, “and I must warn you that you are to say nothing of this to any one.” “And it's not like me to be telling what's none of my business,” snorted the old woman indignantly, as she flounced out of the room. Left alone, the four men looked at each other blankly. All of them, even Tilt, had been confident that the experiment would confirm their theory. “Well, if it wasn't Carew who called the doctor, who was it? That's what I’d like to know,” said Pressly Hart nervously. A PLAN THAT FAILED 227 knowing who he is — a masquerading fortune hunter.” “By all means his arrest should be ordered at once,” said Tilt. “I am confident that once he is arrested the motive for the crime will be quickly revealed. I myself expect to be able to make public to-morrow some facts that will supply the missing motive.” “What have you discovered, Bill?” asked Devan quickly, sensing from the confidence with which Tilt spoke that he was possessed of information he was keeping to himself. “I can't tell it even to you until to-morrow,” said Tilt. “All I can say is that I’ll produce some documents — some amazing documents — that will supply all the motive you want.” “Where'd you get them?” demanded Pressly Hart eagerly. “That is my secret — and somebody else's,” said Tilt mysteriously. “Perhaps in view of what you have said,” cau- tioned Dixon, “it might be well to postpone the arrest until after these documents have been made public.” 228 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “I’m agin that,” said Chief Smithers. “The old woman knows we are suspicioning this fellow Carew, and what a woman knows, soon everybody knows. By to-morrow morning it'll be all over town that we are after him, and he may skip out. I’m for taking no chances. I’m going to arrest him to- night — right away.” “No, no,” cried Devan, “you mustn't do that. He's over at the Manners house. Don't arrest him there.” “Very well,” said Chief Smithers, “if you insist upon it, I’ll wait. But I warn ye, I’m taking no chances. I’m going to get out the whole police force — both of them — and we'll trail him home and arrest him when he gets to the Inn. There ain't no murderer going to slip through my fingers. I'm off right now.” It was an hour before Hart and Dixon left, and soon afterward Tilt and Devan retired, going to bed as soon as Smithers had telephoned that Carew had been arrested and was safe in the village prison under guard. Neither of them could sleep. In the minds of both Devan and Tilt there was the same unanswered A PLAN THAT FAILED 229 : question. How would Mollie Manners take her fiancé's arrest? What would Mollie say? CHAPTER XV INDISPUTABLE PROOF KIT MANNERs came bounding in on Bill the next morning as he was at breakfast. Devan, arising earlier, had already departed, and Bill was alone. “Oh, Bill, Bill,” cried Kit, all excitement. “Is it true? Has Paul Carew been arrested?” “Yes, it's true. He was arrested last night at the Inn just after he left your house.” “What did you find out? Did you have him arrested? Was he – had he been mixed up with Conchita P” Kit fired her questions at him in quick succession, her eyes shining with eagerness, and her lovely red lips parted, tense, quivering. - For a moment Tilt did not answer her. He was wondering how she would take the news that Mollie was not her real sister. There was no use trying to conceal it from her any longer, for now that Devan had told it to Pressly Hart, it soon would be com- INDISPUTABLE PROOF 231 mon knowledge. At any rate, Kit, with her un- canny way of finding things out, would quickly learn it. He might as well tell her the whole thing, he decided. “Go on, Bill,” she urged him. “Tell me every- thing.” “How did you know that Carew had been ar- rested?” “I heard Mr. Devan telling Mollie. He came over to the house this morning early, before break- fast. I heard him asking for Mollie, and I won- dered what he wanted of her at that hour. When she slipped on a kimono and went down to see him, I was in the dining room eating my breakfast, and I guess they didn't know I was there. “I have some bad news for you,' I heard him say, “but I wanted to be the first to tell you.” Then he told her about Paul being arrested.” “What did she do? What did she say? How did she take it?” asked Tilt. Remembering the whirlwind of wrath he had stirred up when he had ventured to suggest to Mollie that her fiancé had been deceiving her, he was in- clined to believe that Mollie's affection for Carew 232 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB was deep-rooted. There was no question in his mind that Devan, when he sought to break the un- pleasant news to her, must have let himself in for a bad time of it. “I didn't wait to hear,” answered Kit, to his great disappointment. “I jumped up from the table and slipped out the side door and ran over here to find out what you'd done. What did you find out about Paul and Conchita P Go on, tell me. Tell me everything.” “The birth certificate signed by Doctor Rhodes gives Paul Carew as the putative father of Con- chita's child.” “I knew it,” said Kit. “What's ‘putative’ mean?” “It means ‘supposed '— can't be proved.” “That explains everything then, doesn't it?” “Yes, it undoubtedly does, but the strange part of it is, that nobody knows about this but you and me. I haven’t told a soul.” “Then why'd they arrest Carew?” “Devan has been gathering a lot of information about the case. He put it all before Pressly Hart and Dixon and Chief Smithers last night, and they * | 234 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB Paul and Conchita. I'm certain she doesn't know who the baby's father is. But tell me, Bill, if Mr. Devan didn't know about this, why did he want Paul arrested? What has he found out?” “It’s a long story,” said Tilt, as he proceeded to relate in detail the strange tragedy that had befallen Rhodes in the early years of his marriage, of the insanity of his wife and her confinement in Sophie Karuski's sanitarium and of the adoption of the child by her own parents. “So Mollie was Doctor Rhodes's daughter and not my real sister at all,” said Kit, her keen mind jumping ahead of his narrative. “Do you know, Bill, that explains a lot of things to me. I’ve often wondered if Mollie were really my sister. We're not a bit alike.” “How? What do you mean?” “We don't look a bit alike, do we?” “No,” confessed Tilt. “I don't believe you do, but there is often a difference in looks in families.” - “Of course, everybody's different, but there's al- ways a sort of family resemblance; but it's in our characters that I think we're mostly different. Now 236 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB Rhodes out of the way. Doctor Rhodes knew about him and Conchita and must have been trying to prevent his marrying Mollie. That explains it, doesn't it, Bill?” “That certainly supplies a motive. It also ac- counts for the mysterious visitor at Rhodes's office a few days before his murder. To my mind it even explains the attempted burglary. I haven’t the slightest doubt that Carew was trying to get hold of the doctor's papers to make sure that there was nothing in them that would betray his relations with Conchita.” “And it explains why Conchita was watching our house that night, too,” said Kit, “and why she mailed that letter to Mollie. Poor, little Conchita! She must have been having a bad time of it. She must have loved Paul and to see him engaged to Mollie must have been terrible for her. It’s per- fectly awful when the man you love loves somebody . else.” - “Probably Paul made her all sorts of promises about what they would do when he got hold of the money. I'm convinced that he is a thoroughly bad . egg — coming here under an assumed name, getting INDISPUTABLE PROOF 237 that girl into trouble, plotting to get Mollie's money, and then killing Rhodes. There'll be no difficulty at all in convicting him.” “But, say, Bill,” said Kit meditatively, “isn't it strange how it has all worked out, just the way ouija said?” “Shucks!” said Tilt, “ouija had nothing to do with it.” “You’ve got to admit,” retorted Kit, “that when we asked ouija who killed Doctor Rhodes, right at the start it kept saying, “Ask Paul Carew’; and that night we tried the automatic writing my hand kept writing, “Find the girl. Find the girl.” Every- thing that has come out is right in accord with that. How do you explain it? You've just got to believe in ouija.” - * “I don't explain it. I can’t. But it's not ouija. Probably it's this: you never liked Carew, and your subconscious mind made the board say that. That's all there is to it. When you asked if Mollie were going to marry Paul Carew, don’t you remember it kept saying my name?” “Well, she isn't going to marry Carew, is she?” cried Kit triumphantly. INDISPUTABLE PROOF 241 Mollie. “Kit has discovered that the handwriting on this envelope that contained the missing message IRhodes was writing that night is Conchita's. See, here is another sample of it. There is direct evi- dence of the connection of Carew and Conchita with the murder.” “I congratulate you, Tilt,” said Devan. “You have found the motive that baffled me.” “Don’t thank me,” said Tilt; “thank Kit. She did it all. Right from the start she suspected Carew, and she has gone about trying to solve the mystery with such intelligence that the entire credit should be hers.” “It certainly should,” said Devan enthusiastically. “But tell me what made you suspect Carew in the first place?” Flushing delightedly under Bill's enthusiastic praise, Kit at Devan's question seemed at once to be strangely embarrassed and at a loss what to say. She still firmly believed in the message that ouija had given her, but since Bill scoffed at it, it seemed to her that to mention it now would be almost like a breach of faith with him. Besides, they might laugh at her, and she did not relish such a prospect. INDISPUTABLE PRoof 243 may for a time mask his character when among decent people, it is a hard rôle to sustain. When brought into intimate relations with the innocent- minded, he is sure, sooner or later, to betray him- self. A sweet girl like Miss Manners, even though she may at first have been strongly attracted by Carew's personality, would be disillusioned as she became more intimate with him.” “I never did think she really loved him,” inter- jected Kit. “Anyhow,” said Chief Smithers, “I guess his goose is cooked. With these here documents that Miss Kit and Mr. Tilt have dug up, we've sure got the goods on him right and proper, for all of his boasting.” “What boasting?” asked Tilt. “You didn't tell us anything about that.” “I ain't had a chance to tell it,” said the police chief aggrievedly. “Things have been happening so fast around here I never did get to finish my story about arresting him.” “Go on, tell us the rest of it,” directed Devan. “As I was saying, when I took him under arrest, he just laughed, and all the way to the station where 244 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB I locked him up in a cell and put Muldoon on guard all night, he kept chuckling to himself. It made me sort of sore the way he kept chuckling and laughing, and I did my duty and warned him that anything he might say or do might be used as evidence against him.” “Didn't he say anything at all?” asked Tilt. “Not from the time he was first arrested, when he made that there scurrilous remark about my going to the movies too much until I locked him in the cell.” “But you said he was boasting.” “He did all right. Just as I was leaving, he chuckled again, and he says to me, says he, “Smith- ers, you've made an ass of yourself arresting me. I didn't kill Doctor Rhodes. I couldn't have. I've got indisputable proof that I couldn't possibly have done it.’” “What do you suppose he meant by that?” asked Tilt, turning inquiringly to Devan. “I haven't the slightest idea,” said Devan. “If he didn't do it, who else could have done it?” cried Kit. “I don't know nothing about it,” said Smithers. INDISPUTABLE PROOF 245 “All I know is that them were his very words, ‘in- disputable proof. " “Indisputable proof,” repeated Devan, puzzled. AN OUTCOME UNEXPECTED 247 there is a possible loophole for Carew. Devan and I have just gone over every angle of the affair with the county prosecutor, and he says the case is per- fect.” “I’m inclined to think Carew was only bluffing about being able to prove his innocence.” The entrance of Chief Smithers accompanied by the Italian girl caused considerable commotion and much wonderment among the spectators, who had not yet learned just what Conchita's connection with the case was. As she entered, Conchita was in tears, and from the tight grasp Smithers kept on her arm, it was evident that if not a prisoner, at least she had come most unwillingly to the hearing. As the hour approached, Doctor Dooner, the county physi- cian, bustled in, busily important, followed by Mrs. Grady and old Hodder. - At three o'clock precisely an officer of the court led in Paul Carew, escorting him to a seat before the judge, where he at once became the observed of all eyes. Jauntily, insouciantly, he met the gaze of his friends and neighbors, looking as trim and dapper as if he had just come from his office instead of a night in a cell. 248 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “He’s certainly brazen about it,” muttered Tilt. “Seems cocksure of himself,” said Dixon. A keen-faced lawyer, whom no one recognized, took his seat beside Carew, and after a whispered conversation with him glanced about the room as if to see that his witnesses were present. The county prosecutor made a brief recital of the facts regard- ing the murder of Rhodes, offering Doctor Dooner as his first witness. As the latter advanced, visibly delighted at the opportunity for publicity, Carew's lawyer — Max Schreyer, it developed that his name WaS - arose. “Your Honor,” he said, “there is no use wasting the time of the court. We admit the known facts — that Walter Rhodes was killed by a rifle shot in the Rockmont Club.” To Doctor Dooner's great disappointment, the judge waved him aside, and Richard Devan was called. As briefly as he could, at the prosecutor's direc- tion, Devan recited the facts as he had gathered them, telling of Rhodes's marriage, of his being lost in the Philippines, of his wife's remarriage, of his restoration to health and return to this country, of 252 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB further admit that Rhodes was trying to prevent my client's marriage to his daughter.” Tilt and Dixon exchanged bewildered glances. They neither of them could understand the tactics of the defence. What possible motive could the attorney have in admitting all these circumstances that on their face so damaged his client's case? “Bill,” whispered Kit, clutching his arm, “they're up to something — something crooked.” “Your Honor,” said the lawyer, “since we admit everything the prosecution has advanced, I would like now to call some witnesses who will prove be- yond any question that my client did not kill Walter Rhodes, that it was a physical impossibility for him to have done so.” Judge Dickinson, like the others in the courtroom, plainly puzzled by the turn affairs had taken, nodded assent, and Schreyer at once called to the stand Harry Dane, the night clerk at the Rockmont Inn. “Mr. Dane,” said the lawyer, “do you recall seeing Paul Carew on the night before Doctor Rhodes was murdered?” “Yes. He hurried in to the hotel in his dinner AN OUTCOME UNEXPECTED 255 “The register will show. He registered his name and address.” “Did you bring the sheets of the register with you for the date that I requested you to?” “Yes,” said the clerk, unrolling a small package he was carrying. Schreyer inspected it for a brief instant and then handed it to the judge, observing: “Here, your Honor, you will see that on the night in question, on the night that Walter Rhodes was murdered, is Mr. Carew's signature, and the hour – 2 A. M. When Mr. Carew sent for me after his arrest, the first question I asked him was to account for where he was on the night of the murder. He said that he had gone to the city on the last train and gave me a detailed account of his move- ments. Fortunately I was able to collect these wit- nesses to verify his statements. I submit that it was an impossibility for him to have committed a murder in Rockmont at or about one o'clock in the morning when his actions from the time he left the club at midnight are fully accounted for, when the records show that at the time the murder must have been committed he was miles away. In all my 258 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB “I’m convinced,” said Devan, “though I can't understand it at all. Every known fact points to Paul Carew as logically the guilty man.” “But,” said the judge, “the alibi these witnesses establish is proof - indisputable proof — that he could not have done it.” Tilt, as he heard the judge repeat the very words that Carew himself had used, slumped down in his seat, dejected and disheartened, puzzled to know what to make of it. Only a few minutes before, as he and Devan had discussed the case with the prose- cutor, it had seemed to him that there was no possi- ble loophole by which Carew could escape. The evidence against him had seemed complete, positive, damning. Yet the alibi—the alibi so perfect that it seemed almost as if it had been prepared in ad- vance — had shattered their case. The mystery of the murder now seemed more baffling, more unsolvable than ever. If Carew hadn't done it — who could have — Mollie? The possibility of her — the daughter of an insane mother, possibly tainted with homicidal mania — being the guilty one loomed up, horrifying him be- yond all measure. Resolutely he tried to shut out AN OUTCOME UNEXPECTED 259 the repellent thought, but it kept coming again and again to his confused mind. A damaging sequence of memories flocked into his brain. Mollie loved Carew. Mollie had become insanely furious at him when he made reflections on Carew. If Rhodes had tried to warn her against Carew, would she not have been enraged — almost beside herself? Could it have been Mollie who had met Doctor Rhodes there in the clubhouse at one in the morning? Reason against it though he tried, Tilt had to admit that there was no circumstance of the murder that could not be accounted for by laying it at Mollie's door. In dazed bewilderment he hardly heard the rest of the proceedings or the commotion in the court as the judge's voice rang Out: “I therefore discharge the defendant, Paul Carew, from custody.” IBut as Carew, with a nod of thanks to the judge, turned to shake hands with his lawyer, and as the crowd, already buzzing with gossip, at the word of adjournment made a rush for outdoors, where freer discussion might prevail, Tilt was brought to by a CHAPTER XVII TWO DISCOVERIES At the sound of Kit's shrill cry, everybody in the courtroom stopped where they were. Even the judge, turning to retire to his chambers, paused to see what the commotion was about. “Quick, Bill,” urged Kit, her voice rising above the tumult of the many voices and the shuffling feet. “See that woman near the door, that tall woman in black. Don't let her get away. She mustn't. Stop her!” Tilt's glance, and that of every one else, following in the direction in which the girl was pointing, saw near the door, struggling to get through the throng, a tall, muscular, masculine-looking woman with graying hair, garbed in rusty black. Her face now wore a malevolent look as she fought vainly to reach the door. Without understanding what it was about, or what possible interest Kit could have in stopping the woman, Tilt sprang quickly into the 262 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB aisle, thrusting through the throng in a regular foot- ball rush to reach the woman's side. Up in the front of the courtroom, Carew, standing by his law- yer, gave one hasty look at the person under obser- vation and sank into a chair, covering his face with his hands, as there burst from him an amazed, agonized cry “Oh, my God — shel.” Mollie Manners through her veil cast a quick glance at the woman, but seemed not to recognize her or be in any way affected by her presence, but just as Tilt laid a restraining hand on the old woman's arm, from the front of the courtroom came a startled cry. It was from Mrs. Manners. “Why, it's Sophie — Sophie Karuski!” At the sound of Mrs. Manners’ voice, carrying her name, the woman renewed her struggles to reach the door. “Let me pass,” she screamed hoarsely, as she endeavored to shake off Tilt's hold. “Hold her! Stop her!” came an excited cry from old Mrs. Grady. “That's the voice — the quare husky voice — that called up the doctor the night he was murdered — the voice that I thought 266 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB for her son, and while he was away in the war she chanced to gain an inkling of the extent of Rhodes's wealth. It was she who sent Carew here to live and kept him supplied with funds. Everything was going well, and the engagement was announced, when Rhodes, knowing about Conchita, sent for Paul and demanded that he break the engagement at once. Paul, not knowing what to do, communicated with his mother. “I doubt if Rhodes had the slightest suspicion of Carew's identity, or ever in any way connected him with the Karuski sanitarium. He probably never had seen Mrs. Karuski's son, if indeed he knew that she had a son. The changed name, of course, con- cealed Paul's identity. Rhodes's only objection to the marriage was on account of the affair with Con- chita. “Mrs. Karuski cold-bloodedly confessed that as soon as she heard of Rhodes's opposition, she began to plan to put him out of the way. She carefully plotted the crime to make sure that suspicion would not fall on her son. She wired Paul, making the appointment with him at six at the hotel in the city, suggesting that he spend the night there, so as to 268 TRAGEDY AT THE BEACH CLUB it and mailed it to Mollie, trying to do something that would bring a break with Paul, I guess, so that she could get him back.” “Probably. At any rate, Mrs. Karuski, after the murder, drove on into the city, throwing the rifle away in some body of water she passed, she doesn't know just where. She kept her appointment with her son. She said nothing whatever to him about what she had done but tried to cheer him up, insist- ing that he go right on with his plans to marry Mollie.” “What a terrible person she must be,” said Kit, shuddering. “More than likely her work with the insane has turned her brain. They tell me that quite frequently doctors and attendants in sanitariums become un- balanced through constant association with the in- sane.” “Anyhow,” said Kit, “I’m glad that Paul won't marry Mollie. I always thought, Bill, that some day you and she would get married.” • - “No chance,” said Tilt, by no means as unhappily as he might have said it two or three weeks before. “She hasn't spoken to me for days, and I don't