sound of a woman's voice. The words she uttered were so startling that
the listeners felt the flesh on their bones creep.
"But wouldn't poisoning be the surer and quicker way? Slip a few drops
of prussic acid into his food, and death would be instantaneous."
Marshal Crow clutched Bill Kepsal's arm. "Did you hear that?" he
whispered. She had spoken in hushed, quavering tones.
Then came a man's voice from the porch above, low and suppressed.
"Why not wait till he is asleep and let me sneak up to him and put the
revolver to his head--"
"But--but suppose he should awake and--"
"He'll never open his eyes again, believe me. Poison isn't always sure
to work quickly or thoroughly. We don't want a struggle."
"You may be right. I--I leave it to you."
"Good! The sooner the better, then. If we do it at once, Francois and
Henry can bury him before morning. I think--"
"I cannot bear to talk about it. Creep in and see if he is asleep. Don't
make the slightest noise. He--he must never know!"
Stealthy footsteps, as of one tiptoeing, were heard by the listeners
below the porch. Then, a moment later, the sound of a woman sobbing.
The foregoing conversation was distinctly heard by at least half of
Marshal Crow's posse. Three of the watchers, crouching not far from
Anderson Crow and his two supporters, abruptly left their hiding-places
and started swiftly toward the front gate. The Marshal intercepted them.
"Where are you going?" he whispered, grabbing the foremost, who happened
to be Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer.
"I was sure I saw that feller you were telling about skipping down
toward the street," whispered Mr. Pratt, his voice shaking. "I'm going
after him. I--"
"Keep still! Stay where you are. Alf, you round up the boys--collect 'em
up here, quiet as possible. We got to prevent this terrible murder. You
heard what they were plottin' to do. Surround the house. Close every
avenue of escape. Three or four of us will bust in through the porch
an'--You stay with me, Sim, an' you too, Bill. Get your pistol ready,
Sim. When I give the word--foller me! Where's Alf? Is he surrounding the
house? Sh! Don't speak!"
* * * * *
Shadowy figures began scuttling about the lawn, darting from bush to
bush, advancing upon the house.
"Now--get ready, Sim," whispered Anderson.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a dull, smothered report,
as of one striking the side of a barrel, reached the ears of the
assembling forces. Then a sharp, agonized cry from the lady in the
veranda.
"Too late!" cried the Marshal, and dashed clumsily up the front steps,
followed by four or five of his henchmen.
Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into the softly
lighted veranda. Behind him came Sim Jackson, brandishing a revolver,
and Bill Kepsal, clutching the hammer he had brought from his forge.
[Illustration: _Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into
the softly lighted veranda_]
They stopped short. A woman in a filmy white gown, cut extremely low in
the neck, confronted them, an expression of alarm in her wide dark eyes.
She was very beautiful. They had never seen any one so beautiful, so
striking, or so startlingly dressed. She had just arisen from the
comfortable wicker chair beside the table, the surface of which was
littered with magazines, papers and documents in all sorts of disorder.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" she demanded, recovering her
composure after the first instant of alarm.
Mr. Crow found his voice. "Surrender peaceable," he said. "I've got you
completely surrounded. Won't do any good to resist. My men are
everywhere. Your partner will be shot down if he--"
"Why, you--you old goose!" cried out the lady, and forthwith burst into
a merry peal of laughter.
The Marshal stiffened.
"That kind of talk won't--" he began, and then broke off to roar: "Quit
your laughin'! You won't be gigglin' like that when you're settin' in
the 'lectric chair. Hustle inside there, men! Take her paramour, dead or
alive!"
"Oh, what a stupendous situation!" cried the beautiful lady, her eyes
dancing. "You really are a darling, Mr. Crow--a perfect, old dear.
You--"
"None o' that now--none o' that!" Mr. Crow warned, taking a step
backward. "Won't do you any good to talk sweet to me. I've got the goods
on you. A dozen witnesses have heard you plottin' to murder. Throw up
your hands! Up with 'em! Now, keep 'em up! _An' stop laughin'!_ You'll
soon find out you can't murder a man in cold blood, even if he is a
trespasser on your property. You can't go around killin'--Say, where is
Mrs. Smith? Where's the lady of the house?"
"I am the lady of the house, Mr. Crow," said the lady, performing a
graceful Delsartian movement with her long bare arms. Mr. Crow and his
companions stared upward at her arms as if fascinated. "I am Mrs.
Smith--Mrs. John Smith."
"I guess not," said Anderson sharply. "She wears a veil, asleep an'
awake. Hold on! Put your hands down! She's signalin' somebody, sure as
you're alive," he burst out, turning to the group of mouth-sagging,
eye-roving gentlemen who followed every graceful curve and twist of
those ivory arms. "What's the matter with you, Sim? Didn't I order you
to go in there an' grab that bloody assassin? What--"
"Not on your life! He's got a gun," exclaimed Sim Jackson. "S'pose I'm
goin' in there, an'--Oh, fer gosh sake!"
A man appeared in the door leading to the interior of the house.
"For the love o' Mike!" issued from the lips of the newcomer. "What in
thunder--what's all this?"
It was Harry Squires.
He gazed open-mouthed, first at the beautiful, convulsed lady, and then
at the huddled group of men.
"We are caught red-handed, Mr. Squires," said the beautiful lady. "Shall
we go to the electric chair hand in hand?"
A slow grin began to reach out from the corners of Harry's mouth as if
its intention was to connect with his ears.
"My God, Harry--you ain't mixed up in this murder?" bleated Anderson.
The old man's dismay was so genuine, his distress so pitiful, that the
heart of Harry Squires was touched. His face sobered at once. Stepping
forward, he held out his hand to the Marshal.
"Good old Anderson! It's all right. Buck up, old top! I'm sorry to say
that blood has been shed here tonight. Come with me; I'll show you the
corpse."
Mr. Crow was not to be caught napping. "Some of you fellers stay here
an' guard this woman. Don't let her get away."
* * * * *
A few minutes later he stood beside Harry Squires in the cellar below
the kitchen. There was a smell of gunpowder on the close, still air.
They looked down upon the black, inanimate form of the French poodle.
"There, Mr. Hawkshaw," said Harry, "there lies all that is mortal of the
finest little gentleman that ever wore a collar. Take off your hat,
Sim--and you too, Bill--all of you. You are standing in the presence of
death. Behold in me the assassin. I am the slayer of yon grisly corpse.
Shackle me, Mr. Marshal. Lead me to the gallows. I am the guilty party."
Marshal Crow took off his hat with the rest--but he did it the better to
mop his forehead.
"Do you mean to tell me there ain't been any man slew in this house?" he
inquired slowly.
"Up to the hour of going to press," said the city editor of the
_Banner_, "no human remains have been unearthed."
"Then, where in thunder is the feller who's been foolin' around Mrs.
Smith's front yard, the--"
"Last I saw of him he was beating it down the street about two hours
ago, and you were giving him the run of his life. I don't believe the
rascal will ever dare come around here again. The chances are he's still
running."
The Marshal muttered something under his breath, and shot a pleading
look at Harry.
"Yes, sir," continued Harry solemnly, "I'll bet my head he'll never be
seen in these parts again."
"If he hadn't got such a start of me," said Anderson, regaining much of
his aplomb, "I'd 'a nabbed him, sure as you're alive. He could run like
a whitehead. I never seen such--"
"Shall we go upstairs, gentlemen, and relieve the pressure on Miss
Hildebrand? She is, I may say, the principal mourner, poor lady."
"Miss Who?"
"Gentlemen, the lady up there is no other than the celebrated actress,
Juliet Hildebrand. The Veiled Lady and she are one and the same. Before
we retire from this spot, let me explain that Mr. Snooks, the deceased,
was run over by her automobile an hour or so ago. His back was broken. I
merely put an end to his suffering. Now come--"
"Mister Snooks?" inquired Anderson quickly. "Well, that solves one of
the mysteries that's been botherin' me. An'--an' you say she's the big
actress whose picture we see in the papers every now an' again?"
"The same, Mr. Crow. She has done me the honour to accept a play that I
have been guilty of writing. She came up here to go over it with me
before putting it into rehearsal, and incidentally to enjoy a month's
vacation after a long and prosperous season in New York."
"Do you mean to say you've knowed all along who she was?" demanded
Anderson. "Been comin' up here to see her every night or so, I suppose."
"More or less."
"That settles it!" said the Marshal sternly. "You are under arrest, sir.
Have you got anybody to bail you out, er are you goin' to spend the
night in the lock-up?"
"What's the charge, Mr. Hawkshaw?" inquired Harry, amiably.
"Practisin' without a dicense."
"Practising what?" asked Harry.
"Jokes!" roared Anderson gleefully, and slapped him on the back.
* * * * *
Again the Marshal slapped the culprit's back. "Yes, sir, the joke's on
me. I admit it. I'll set up the seegars for everybody here. Sim, send a
box of them 'Uncle Tom' specials round to my office first thing in the
mornin'. Yes, sir, Harry, my boy, you certainly caught me nappin' good
and plenty. Tain't often I git--"
"If you don't mind, Anderson," interrupted Elmer K. Pratt, "I'll take a
nickel's worth of chewin'-tobacco. My wife don't like me to smoke around
the house."
"Gentlemen," said Harry Squires, "there are a few bottles of beer in the
icebox, and the cook will make all the cheese and ham sandwiches we can
eat. I am sure Miss Hildebrand will be happy to have you partake of
her--"
"Hold on a minute, Harry," broke in the Marshal hastily. His face was a
study. The painfully created joviality came to a swift and uncomfortable
end, and in its place flashed a look of embarrassment. He simply
couldn't face the smiling Miss Hildebrand.
"If it's all the same to you," he went on, lowering his voice and
glancing furtively over his shoulder at the departing members of his
posse, "I guess I'll go out the back way." Seeing the surprised look-on
Harry's face, he floundered badly for a moment or two, and then
concluded with the perfectly good excuse that it was his duty to lead
Alf Reesling, the one-time town drunkard, away from temptation. In
support of this resolve, he called out to Alf: "Come here, Alf. None o'
that, now! You come along with me."
"I ain't goin' to touch anything but a ham sandwich," protested Alf with
considerable asperity.
"Never mind! You do what I tell you, or I'll run you in. Remember, you
got a wife an' daughter, an'--"
"Inasmuch as Alf has been on the water-wagon for twenty-seven years, Mr.
Marshal, I think you can trust him--" began Harry, but Anderson checked
him with a resolute gesture.
"Can't take any chances with him. He's got to come with me."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Harry.
"An' besides," said Anderson, "a man in my position can't afford to be
seen associatin' with actresses--an' you know it, Harry Squires. Come
on, Alf!"
THE ASTONISHING ACTS OF ANNA
The case of Loop vs. Loop was docketed for the September term in the
Bramble County Circuit Court at Boggs City. When it became officially
known in Tinkletown, through the columns of the _Banner_, that Eliphalet
Loop had brought suit for divorce against his wife Anna, the town
experienced a convulsion that bore symptoms of continuing without
abatement until snow fell, and perhaps--depending on the evidence
introduced--throughout the entire winter. For Eliphalet, in accusing his
wife, was obliged to state in his bill that the identity and whereabouts
of "said co-respondent" were at present unknown to complainant. As Mrs.
Loop emphatically--some said spitefully--declined to satisfy the
curiosity of Mr. Loop, and the whole of Tinkletown as well, speculation
took such an impatient attitude toward her that Eliphalet, had he been
minded to do so, could have made use of any one of three hundred names
in a village boasting an adult male population of three hundred and
seventeen. Husbands who had been in the habit of loafing around the
village stores for a couple of hours after supper, winter and summer,
now felt constrained to remain later than usual for fear that
evil-minded persons outstaying them might question the statement that
they were going home; and many a wife who was seldom awake after nine
stayed up until the man of the house was safely inside, where she could
look at him with an intentness so strange that he began to develop a
ferocious hatred for Mrs. Loop.
The town marshal, Anderson Crow, encountering the lugubrious Eliphalet
in front of Dr. Brown's office early one morning several weeks after the
filing of the complaint, put this question to him:
"See here, Liff, why in thunder don't you make that wife o' yourn tell
who 'tis she's been carryin' on with?"
Mr. Loop was not offended. He was not even embarrassed.
"'Cause I ain't speakin' to her nowadays, that's why."
"But you got a right to speak to her, ain't you? She's livin' in the
same house with you, ain't she? An' it's _your_ house, ain't it? Stand
up to her. Show her you got a little spunk."
"I been livin' out in the barn, Anderson, on the advice of my lawyer. He
says as long as she won't git out, I've got to. Been sleepin' out there
for the last three weeks."
"I'd like to see any woman drive me out of a comfortable bed!"
"I don't a bit mind sleepin' in the barn," said Eliphalet in apology.
"It's kind of a relief to get away from them women. Hosses can't talk. I
don't know as I've ever slept as well as I have--"
"The point is," broke in Anderson firmly, "this wife of yourn is causin'
a great deal of misery in town, Liff. Somethin's got to be done about
it."
"I ain't askin' anybody to share my misery with me," said Mr. Loop with
some asperity.
"I bet I've heard fifty men's names mentioned in the last twenty-four
hours," said Anderson, compressing his lips. "'Tain't fair, Liff, an'
you know it."
"'Tain't my fault," said Mr. Loop stubbornly. "I won't ask her ag'in.
You wouldn't either, if you'd got a wallop over the head with a
stove-lid like I did when I asked her the first time." He removed his
weather-worn straw hat. "See that? Doc Brown had to take seven stitches
in it, an' he says if old Hawkins the undertaker had seen it first, I
wouldn't have had to send for a doctor at all. You ask her yourself, if
you're so blamed anxious to know. I seen her out in the back yard just
'fore I left. She was lookin' kinder sad and down in the mouth; so I sez
to her as gentle as I knowed how--an' as legally as possible, on the
advice of my lawyer: 'Good mornin', Mrs. Loop.' An' then when I seen her
lookin' around for somethin' to throw at me, I knowed it wasn't any use
tryin' to be polite, so I sez: 'Git out o' my sight, you old cow!' And
'fore you could say scat, she was out o' my sight. I didn't know it was
possible for me to be so spry at _my_ age. Just as she was gettin' out
o' my sight by me gettin' around the corner of the barn, I heard
somethin' go ker-slam ag'inst the side of the barn, but I don't know
what it was. Sounded like a milk-crock."
Anderson looked at him sorrowfully. "Well, you can't say I didn't warn
you, Liff."
"Warn me about what?"
"'Bout advertisin' fer a wife. I told you no good could come of it. An'
now I guess you'll agree that I was right."
"Oh, shucks! Anna was as good a woman as I ever had, Andy Crow, an' I
don't know as I ever had a better worker around the place. Fer two years
she--"
He choked up and began to sniffle.
"There ain't no denyin' the fact she lasted longer'n any of 'em," agreed
Anderson. "I don't just exactly remember how many funerals you've had,
Liff, but--say, just out o' curiosity, how many have you had? Me an'
Mrs. Crow had a dispute about it last evenin'."
"It's cost me a lot o' money, Anderson, a turrible lot o' money,"
groaned Eliphalet, "what with doctors' bills an' coffins; an'
nothin'--absolutely nothin'--to show fer it! No children, no--nothin'
but mother-in-laws an' tombstones. By gosh, why is it mother-in-laws
last so long? I've got five mother-in-laws livin' this minute, an' the
good Lord knows I never done anything to encourage 'em. I've lost four
wives an' not a single mother-in-law. It don't seem right--now, does
it, Anderson?"
"Well, if you'd married somebody nearer your own age, Liff, you might
stand some chance of out-livin' their mothers. But you been marryin'
women anywheres from fifty to sixty years younger'n you are. You must be
derned near eighty."
"If you git 'em too old, they're allus complainin' about doin' the work
around the house and garden, an' then you got to git a hired girl.
Specially the washin'!"
"Seems to me it'd be cheaper in the long run to work a hired girl to
death rather than a wife," said Anderson tartly.
"Most generally it is," agreed Mr. Loop. "But I sorter got into the
habit of marryin' hired girls, figgerin' they make the best kind of
wives. I give 'em a good home, plenty to eat an'--" His eyes roamed
aloft, as if searching for some other beneficence, and finally lighting
on Dr. Brown's door-plate, found something to clinch his argument. "An'
as fine a funeral as any woman could ask fer!" he concluded.
"Let's git back to the main question," said Anderson unfeelingly. He
didn't have much use for Eliphalet. "What fer sort of lookin' feller is
this man your wife's been carryin' on with?"
"Well," began Mr. Loop, squinting his bleary eyes reflectively, "I ain't
never seen him 'cept when he was runnin', an' it was after dark
besides. Twice I seen him jump out of one of our back winders when I got
home earlier'n usual from lodge-meetin'. First time I made out he was a
burglar an' hustled in to see if he had took anything. You see, I allus
keep my pocketbook in a burey drawer in our bedroom; an' natcherly, as
it was our bedroom winder he jumped out of, I--well, natcherly I'd be a
little uneasy, wouldn't I?"
"Specially if you thought your wife might 'a' been rendered insensible
by the robber," said Anderson.
"Natcherly," said Mr. Loop quickly. "Course, I thought of her first of
all. Well, after I went to the burey an' found the pocketbook all safe,
I asked Anna if she'd heard anybody tryin' to get in through the winder.
She looked kinder funny-like fer a second er two an' then said no, she
hadn't. I told her what I'd seen, and she said I must be drunk er
somethin', 'cause she'd been in the room all the time havin' a bite of
somethin' to eat 'fore goin' to bed. I never saw anybody that could eat
more'n that woman, Anderson. She's allus eatin'. Course I believed her
_that_ time, 'cause there was a plate o' cold ham an' some salt-risin'
biscuits an', oh, a lot of other victuals on the washstand, with only
one knife an' fork. Her mother was sound asleep in her room upstairs;
an' her sister Gertie,--who come to visit us six months ago an' is still
visitin' us an' eatin' more'n any two hired men you ever saw,--Gertie,
she was out in the kitchen readin' that Swede paper my wife takes. An'
she said she didn't hear anybody either, an' up and told Anna she'd be
afraid to live with a man that come home drunk every night in the week
like I did. She's the meanest woman I ever see, Anderson. She--"
"I don't want to hear about that side of your wife's relations,
Eliphalet Loop," interposed Anderson.
"Well," said Eliphalet patiently, "I kinder figered I might 'a' been
mistaken about seein' him that first time, but when the same thing
happened ag'in on the night I went over to set up with Jim Hooper's
corpse, why, I jest natcherly begin to think it was kinder funny. What
set me thinkin' harder'n ever was finding' a man's hat in my room,
hangin' on the back of a chair. Thinks I, that's mighty funny--specially
as the hat wasn't mine."
"What kind of a hat was it?" questioned Anderson, taking out his
notebook and pencil. "Describe it carefully, Liff."
"It was a grey fewdory," said Mr. Loop.
"The one you been wearin' to church lately?"
"Yes. I thought I might as well be wearin' it, long as nobody claimed
it," explained the ingenuous husband of Anna. "It was a couple of sizes
too big fer me, so I stuffed some paper inside the sweat-band. I allus
hate to have a hat comin' down on my ears, don't you? Kinder spreads 'em
out."
"Well, the first thing we've got to do, Liff, is to find some one with
a head two sizes bigger'n yours," said Anderson, giving his whiskers a
slow, speculative twist.
"That oughtn't to be hard to do," said Eliphalet without hesitation. "I
wear a five an' three-quarters. Most everybody I know wears a bigger hat
than I do."
"That makes it more difficult," admitted Anderson. "Was it bought in
Tinkletown or Boggs City?"
"It had a New York label stamped on the sweat-band."
"Bring it down to my office, Liff, so's I c'n examine it carefully. Now,
when did you next see this man?"
"'Bout two weeks after the second time--up in our cow-pasture. He was
settin' beside Anna on some rails back of the corn-crib, an' he had his
arm around her--or part way round, anyhow; she's a turrible thick woman.
Been fattenin' up somethin' awful in the last two years. I snook up an'
looked at 'em through the blackberry bushes, layin' flat so's they
couldn't see me."
"Was that all you did?"
"What else could I do?" demanded Mr. Loop in some surprise.
"Why, you could have tackled him right then an' there, couldn't you?"
"Didn't I tell you there was two of 'em?"
"Two men?"
"No. Him an' Anna. You don't suppose I could lick _both_ of 'em, do you?
I bet there ain't a man in town--'cept that blacksmith, Bill
Kepsal--that c'n lick Anna single-handed. Besides, I ain't half the man
I used to be. I'm purty nigh eighty, Anderson. If I'd been four or five
years younger, I'd ha' showed him, you bet."
"Umph!" was Mr. Crow's comment. "How long did they set there?"
"I can't just perzactly say. They was gone when I woke up!"
"When you what?"
"Woke up. It was gittin' purty late, long past my bedtime, an' I'd had a
hard day's work. I guess I muster fell asleep."
"Was Mrs. Loop up when you got back home?"
"Yes, she was up."
"What did you say to her?"
"I--I didn't git a chance to say anything," said Eliphalet mournfully.
"All three of 'em was eatin' breakfast, an' I got the most awful
tongue-lashin' you ever heard. 'Cused me of everything under the sun. I
couldn't eat a mouthful."
"Served you right," said Anderson sternly. "Well, did you ever see him
ag'in?"
"I ain't sayin' as it was the same feller," qualified Mr. Loop, "but
last night I seen a man streakin' through the potato-patch lickety-split
some'eres round nine o'clock. He was carryin' a bundle an' was all
stooped over. I yelled at him to stop er I'd fire. That seemed to make
him run a little faster, so I took after him, an' run smack into Anna
comin' round the corner of the hen-roost. Soon as I got my breath, I
asked her what in tarnation she was doin' out at that time o' night."
"Well, go on. What did she say?" demanded Anderson as Mr. Loop paused to
wipe his forehead.
"She--she insulted me," said Mr. Loop.
"How?" inquired Marshal Crow sceptically.
"She called me a skunk."
Mr. Crow was silent for some time, tugging at his whiskers. He stared
intently at the upper corner of Dr. Brown's cottage. His lip twitched
slightly. Presently, feeling that he could trust his voice, he asked:
"Why don't you offer a reward, Liff?"
"I thought of doin' that," said Mr. Loop, but a trifle half-heartedly.
"If you offer a big enough reward, I'll find out who the feller is,"
said Anderson. "Course, you understand it ain't my duty as marshal to
ferret out matrimonial mysteries. I'd have to tackle it in my capacity
as a private detective. An' you couldn't hardly expect me to do all this
extry work without bein' paid fer it."
Mr. Loop scratched his head. Then he scratched a small furrow in the
gravel roadway with the toe of one of his boots.
"Well, you see, I got to pay a lawyer right smart of a fee; an'
besides--"