“My dear, I am sorry if I have told you anything that distresses you,”
said Viola gently. “But I thought--”
“Oh, yes, it is best to know,” was the low response. “Only--only I was
so happy a little while ago, and now--”
“But perhaps it may all be explained!” interrupted Viola. “It is only
some tiresome business deal, I'm sure. I never could understand them,
and I don't want to. But it does seem queer that there is no record of
that fifteen thousand dollars being paid back.”
“What does Captain Poland say about it?”
“Oh, he told Harry, very frankly, that father paid the money, and that
the receipt was sent to Mr. Blossom. But the latter says it can not be
found.”
“And do you suspect Mr. Blossom?” asked Minnie, and her voice held a
challenge.
“Well,” answered Viola slowly, “there isn't much of which to suspect
him. It isn't as if Captain Poland claimed to have paid father the
fifteen thousand dollars, and the money couldn't be found. It's only a
receipt for money which the captain admits having gotten back that is
missing. But it makes such confusion. And there are so many other things
involved--”
“You mean about the poisoning?”
“Yes. Oh, I wish it were all cleared up! Don't let's talk of it. I must
find out about Mr. Blossom going away. We shall have to get some one in
his place. Aunt Mary will be so disturbed--”
“Don't say that I told you!” cautioned Minnie. “Perhaps I should not
have mentioned it. Oh, dear, I am so miserable!” And she certainly
looked it.
“And so am I!” confessed Viola. “If only Harry would tell what he is
keeping back.”
“You mean about that quarrel with your father?”
“Yes. And he acts so strangely of late, and looks at me in such a queer
way. Oh, I'm afraid, and I don't know what I'm afraid of!”
“I'm the same way, Viola!” admitted Minnie.
“I wonder why we two should have all the trouble in the world?”
And the two were miserable together.
They were not the only ones to suffer in those days. Captain Gerry
Poland could not drive Viola from his mind. To the yachtsman, she was
the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he wondered if fortune
would ever make it possible for him to approach her again on the subject
that lay so close to his heart.
And then there was Bartlett. It was true he walked the streets--or
rather rode around them in his “Spanish Omelet”--a free man; yet the
finger of suspicion was constantly pointed at him.
More than once in the town he met people who sneered openly at him, as
if to say, “You are guilty, but we can't prove it.” And once on the golf
course he went up to three men who had formerly been quite friendly and
suggested a game of golf, upon which one after another the others made
trivial excuses and begged to be excused. Upon this occasion the young
man had rushed away, his face scarlet, and he had only calmed down after
a mad tour of many miles in his racing machine.
“It's an outrage!” he had muttered to himself. “A dastardly outrage! But
what is a fellow going to do?”
Meanwhile Colonel Ashley and Jack Young were puzzling their heads over
many matters connected with the golf course mystery. Jack had obeyed the
colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on
the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean
Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand,
informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors
during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total
output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for
the same period was 66,255 bushels. All of which information, useful in
a way, no doubt, was accepted by Jack with a smile. He was there to look
and listen, and, well, he did it.
“But I've got to pass it up,” he told Colonel Ashley. “I've stuck to
that Jean chap until I guess he must think I want him for a chauffeur
if ever I'm able to own a car bigger than a flivver. And aside from the
fact that he does use some kind of dope, in which he isn't alone in this
world, I can't get a line on him.”
“No, I didn't expect you would,” said Colonel Ashley, with a smile.
“But are you well enough acquainted with him to have a talk with his
sweetheart?”
“You mean Mazi?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I s'pose I might get a talk with her. But what's the idea?”
“Nothing special, only I'd like to see if she tells you the same story
she told me. Have a try at it when you get a chance.”
“On the theory, I suppose, of in any trouble, look for the lady?”
“Somewhat, yes.”
They were talking in The Haven, for Jack had been put up there as
a guest at the request of Colonel Ashley. And when the bell
rang, indicating some one at the door, they looked at one another
questioningly.
Then came the postman's whistle, for Lakeside, though but a summer
resort, with a population much larger in summer than in winter, boasted
of mail delivery.
A maid placed the letters in their usual place on the hall table, and
the colonel quickly ran through them, for he had reports sent him from
his New York office from time to time.
“Here's one for you, Jack,” he announced, handing his assistant a
letter.
While Jack Young was reading it the colonel caught sight of a postal,
with the address side down, lying among the other missives. It was a
postal which bore several lines of printing, the rest being filled in by
a pen, and the import of it was that a certain library book, under the
number 58 C. H--161* had been out the full time allowed under the rules,
and must either be returned for renewal, or a fine of two cents a day
paid, and the recipient was asked to give the matter prompt attention.
The colonel turned the card over. It was addressed to Miss Viola
Carwell at The Haven.
“So the book is out on her card,” murmured the detective. “I must look
for her copy of 'Poison Plants of New Jersey,' and see if it is like the
one I have.”
“Were you speaking to me?” asked Jack, having finished his letter.
“No, but I will now. We've got to get busy on this case, and close it
up. I've been too long on it now. Shag is getting impatient.”
“Shag?”
“Yes, he wants me to go fishing.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I'm ready. What are the orders?”
Two busy days on the part of Colonel Ashley and his assistant followed.
They went on many mysterious errands and were out once all night. But
where they went, what they did or who they saw they told no one.
It was early one evening that Colonel Ashley waited for his assistant in
the library of The Haven. Jack had gone out to send a message and was to
return soon. And as the colonel waited in the dim light of one electric
bulb, much shaded, he saw a figure come stealing to the portieres that
separated the library from the hall. Cautiously the figure advanced and
looked into the room. A glance seemed to indicate that no one was there,
for the colonel was hidden in the depths of a big chair, “slumping,”
which was his favorite mode of relaxing.
“I wonder if some one is looking for me?” mused the colonel. “Well, just
for fun, I'll play hide and seek. I can disclose myself later.” And so
he remained in the chair, hardly breathing the silent figure parted the
heavy curtains, within, dropped something white on the floor, and then
quickly hurried away, the feet making no sound on the thick carpet of
the hall.
“Now,” mused the colonel to himself, “I wonder that is a note for me,
or a love missive for one the maids from the butler or the gardener, who
too bashful to deliver it in person. I'd better look.”
Without turning on more light the colonel picked up the thing that had
fluttered so silently to the floor. It was a scrap of paper, and as he
held it under the dimly glowing bulb he saw, scrawled in printed letters:
“Viola Carwell has a poison book.”
“As if I didn't know it!” softly exclaimed the colonel.
And then, as he resumed his comfortable, but not very dignified
position, he heard some one coming boldly along the hall, and the voice
of Jack asked:
“Are you in here, Colonel?”
“Yes, come in. Did you get a reply?”
“Surely. Your friend must have been waiting for your telegram.”
“I expected he would be. Let me see it,” and the detective read a brief
message which said:
“Thomas much better after a long sleep.”
“Ah,” mused the colonel. “I'm very glad Thomas is better.”
“Is Thomas, by any chance, a cat?” asked Jack, who read the telegram the
colonel handed him.
“He is--just that--a cat and nothing more. And now, Jack, my friend, I
think we're about ready to close in.”
“Close in? Why--”
“Oh, there are a few things I haven't told you yet. Sit down and I'll
just go over them. I've been on this case a little longer than you have,
and I've done some elimination which you haven't had a chance to do.”
“And you have eliminated all but--”
“Captain Poland and LeGrand Blossom.”
At these words Jack started, and made a motion of silence. They were
still in the library, but more lights had been turned on, and the place
was brilliant.
“What's the matter?” asked the colonel, quickly. “I thought I heard a
noise in the hall,” and Jack stepped to the door and looked out. But
either he did not see, or did not want to see, a shrinking figure which
quickly crouched down behind a chair not far from the portal.
“Guess I was mistaken,” said Jack. “Anyhow I didn't see anything.”
Did he forget that coming out of a light room into a dim hall was not
conducive to good seeing? Jack Young ought to have remembered that.
“One of the servants, likely, passing by,” suggested the colonel. “Yes,
Jack, I think we must pin it down to either the captain or Blossom.”
“Do you really think Blossom could have done it?”
“He could, of course. The main question is, did he have an object in
getting Mr. Carwell out of the way?”
“And did he have?”
“I think he did. I've been trailing him lately, when he didn't suspect
it, and I've seen him in some queer situations. I know he needed a lot
of money and--well, I'm going to take him into custody as the murderer
of Mr. Carwell. I want you to--”
But that was as far as the detective got, for there was a shriek in the
hall--a cry of mortal anguish that could only come from a woman--and
then, past the library door, rushed a figure in white.
Out and away it rushed, flinging open the front door, speeding down the
steps and across the lawn.
“Quick!” cried Colonel Ashley. “Who was that?”
“I don't know!” answered Jack. “Must have been the person I thought I
heard in the hall.”
“We must find out who it was!” went on the detective. “You make some
inquiries. I'll take after her.”
“Could it have been Miss Viola?”
The question was answered almost as soon as it was asked, for, at that
moment, Viola herself came down the front stairs.
“What is it?” she asked the two detectives. “Who cried out like that? Is
some one hurt?”
“I don't know,” answered Colonel Ashley. “Mr. Young and I were talking
in the library when we heard the scream. Then a woman rushed out.”
“It must have been Minnie Webb!” cried Viola. “She was here a moment
ago. The maid told me she was waiting in the parlor, and I was detained
upstairs. It must have been Minnie. But why did she scream so?”
Colonel Ashley did not stop to answer.
“Look after things here, Jack!” he called to his assistant. “I'm going
to follow her. If ever there was a desperate woman she is.”
And he sped through the darkness after the figure in white.