Five Fatal Words

By

Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie

Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, Inc.

New York, 1932

COPYRIGHT, 1931-1932,

BY EDWIN BALMER AND PHILIP WYLIE

All rights reserved

SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED BY BROWN BROTHERS LINOTYPERS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY

THE BRANWELL PRESS, INC., NEW YORK

FIVE FATAL WORDS

CHAPTER I

IT was a day for taking a desperate chance; a day which offered little choice, indeed. And here was a chance.

Wanted--Young lady, twenty-two to twenty-four years, educated, refined, pleasing appearance, cheerful disposition. Applicant must have no ties. Must be willing to devote entire time for one year to position. Excellent personality and character references required; also intelligence, reliability, and resourcefulness. Unusual remuneration. Write, describing your personal situation fully. C. V. 164.

The final initials and figures signified, as Melicent Waring knew, a code address in care of the newspaper; there was no other signature.

The advertisement was in the "Help Wanted--Female" column, and had not been there yesterday or previously. Of that Melicent was sure. This was its first appearance, so she had as good a chance as anyone else to get the position.

Of course, there was a strange tone to it; something out of the ordinary; that was sure. Something suggesting a risk. But could Melicent Waring be a chooser? For nine weeks she had been out of a job, dependent upon Helen Crosby; and now Helen's job, too, was gone. They shared their one room, kitchenette, and bath, with rent paid for exactly eight days more; they had left not quite a dollar a day for both of them, even through that period. To be exact, they possessed seven dollars and forty-two cents between them--the last of Helen's money.

"Here's my new job," announced Melicent.

Helen looked up from the can she was opening raggedly. "Which one? 'Young lady must have no ties--but reliability and resourcefulness--unusual remuneration'"?

"Oh," said Melicent. "You saw it, too?"

"Yes, I saw it."

"Well," said Melicent and waited.

"You aren't going to answer that?" said Helen.

"I certainly am. Why not?"

"Does it sound all right to you?"

"Of course, it doesn't sound all right; but it doesn't sound indecent; or does it to you?"

"No," admitted Helen. "It doesn't sound indecent. I don't know why, but it sounds risky--decidedly."

"Well, are we so safe-if neither of us gets something to do?"

"Neither of us," Helen stuck to her dreads, "has to take--that."

"At least I'm going to see what it is. It says 'must have no ties.' I am not only an orphan, but I haven't even a Dutch uncle. It says 'unusual remuneration' and I've been living without any remuneration at all for so long, darling, that even if it said 'modest remuneration' I'd jump at it."

"I wouldn't. I wish I'd burned that paper. When I saw it, I thought, 'Melicent would answer that'--"

"You bet I'm answering that. I'm writing my letter in my head now. I've got to have that job, and I believe I can get it! Oh, you can burn it," as Helen grabbed the paper;

"I've got it memorized--C. V. 164."

Helen gave up and, as it was her turn to get dinner, she went about the motions of her work, at the same time watching Melicent anxiously.

Anyone passing Melicent Waring on the street would not have thought of taking an anxious attitude toward her. She had a look of sophistication and self-assurance. Such a passer-by would have seen a girl who carried herself remarkably well; who had excellent taste in clothes and the knack of appearing smartly dressed, and who was attractive from the heels of her shoes to the crown of a hat worn slightly aslant. She had a generous but exquisitely defined mouth, wide blue-gray eyes, and hair the color of which depended on the light falling upon it. Sometimes it was a rich brown, sometimes reddish, and in bright sunshine it had amber and golden high-lights.

Many girls might have been satisfied to depend on so much attractiveness to make their way in life easy. Melicent certainly could have been a show girl or a model. Instead, she had used the small inheritance left to her by her father for her education. For a time, after a year of college and two years in business school, she had profited by that use. But now the national economic reversal had caught her first employer, the only one she had had. He had reluctantly dismissed her; and Melicent had discovered that other employment of any sort was practically impossible to find.

She was competent and clear-minded as ever, but during the weeks she had answered "Help Wanted" advertisements of many sorts, only to find again and again a girl of a different competence, of another experience was wanted, her self-confidence became more and more difficult to assume--as no one knew better than Helen.

However, she began confidently this letter in which she described, fully and honestly, her personal situation.

"I was born in Meriden, Connecticut, and went to school there. I was an only child; and my mother, who died eight years ago, was an only child. My father died four years ago; he had one brother who was killed in a motor accident. I am just twenty-two years of age and have no near relative and no tie whatever except the normal friendships one forms and which would not in any way interfere with my devoting my entire time and attention to my employment. I am entirely dependent upon finding employment and .

. ."

When she had finished the letter, she addressed the envelope to the cryptic symbols of the newspaper office and put on her hat.

"Let me see that," Helen begged of her.

"Why?"

"The more I think of that ad, the more it gives me the creeps. There's something funny about it. Don't mail that letter, please, Melicent?"

"Of course, I'm going to mail it. I'd rather eat and have the creeps--if that's all will happen to me--than be hungry." Melicent laughed and opened the door. "Don't worry; probably I'll not have the luck to get an answer."

"It won't be luck."

The letter was dropped in the mail box; that much was done, and Melicent, returning, looked through the remaining ads in the paper which Helen had not destroyed.

In the "Help Wanted--Male" column, adjoining the "Help Wanted--Female," she now noticed for the first time an advertisement: "Wanted—Twenty-four to thirty years" . . .

but otherwise identical in wording to the advertisement which she had answered. The young men were to write to the symbols C. K. I22 at the newspaper office.

It gave her a start. Yes, undeniably the queerness of it was more than doubled by this repetition of the ad. She showed it to Helen.

"I told you it was funny. I wish you hadn't written."

But Melicent tossed her head defiantly. "I'm glad I did."

Her letter was answered on the following afternoon. The reply was formal and unilluminating. It merely gave an address at which to call and a time--Wednesday, which was the following day, at four o'clock at the offices of Reese & Ritter.

The offices of Reese & Ritter proved to be in the Frobisher building off William Street and near Wall Street, in the center of the financial district. The building was old and grimy--its heavy marble façade covered with dark veils of soot, the first of which was certainly laid upon it before the death of Queen Victoria. The elevator was ornate with iron filigree. The office itself was precisely the sort of office to be expected in such a building. Its luxury was the luxury of another era. There was no sparkle of chrome steel, no latter-day brilliance in it. Instead, ponderous mahogany, smoky walnut, dull carpets, a prim middle-aged lady of the reception desk, and an aura at once pompous and heavy.

Melicent, who had come down alone and without mentioning it to Helen, felt vaguely uneasy. Probably it was chiefly the recollection of Helen's hunch about this job, but partly it was these offices. There was something old, obstinate, dead, and half forgotten about the place. Who wanted a girl with no ties here? And why?

She gave her name and presently was ushered through a door. The reception clerk said, "This is Miss Waring, Mr. Reese," and departed. Melicent found herself looking at an elderly gentleman with white hair and an angular face, who sat behind a desk in one corner of a high-ceilinged, shadowy room. His voice, when it came to her, was reassuring. It was the voice of a cultured man, and a man who both knew and meant what he was going to say.

"Sit down, Miss Waring."

"Thank you."

She took the chair at the side of his desk. For a few moments he stared at her.

"Your letter was an indication of about the sort of person for whom I am looking. I would like to ask you a few questions."

"Certainly."

"You say you're an orphan and have not even an aunt or uncle; but have you no more distant relatives who would concern themselves if you took an exclusive and, I may say, rather confining employment?"

"No one."

"Good."

"And the friends of whom you speak would not be in a position to interfere with you?"

"No, Mr. Reese."

"Have you ever had any nervous disorders? I mean, are you given to apprehensions or hysteria?"

If she were, thought Melicent, she would show some uneasiness after such a question in these circumstances. She prided herself that she concealed the excitement inwardly shaking her as she answered, "No, never." She was going to find out at least the nature of this strange employment.

"No insanity in your family or even marked emotional instability?"

"No."

"Do you consider yourself a person who is able to participate in other people's affairs and keep them to yourself ?"

"I have been the confidential secretary of a broker for three years."

"I see." Mr. Reese stroked his chin. His next question was almost rhetorical. "You are the sort of person who has a good deal of courage?"

Melicent found that her right hand was slowly and nervously clinching and undinching. Her answer was an expression of her bewilderment. "If you would be good enough to tell me the nature of the work you have in mind, I could probably tell you immediately whether or not I would be able to do it."

Mr. Reese nodded as if that were a legitimate statement, but his answer was altogether foreign to his nod. "Unfortunately, I have no idea what the work is."

For a moment Melicent thought she was dealing, not with an eccentric old gentleman, but one who had completely lost his mind. She started to rise. "Really, Mr.

Reese, I don't see as it would be worth my--"

"Just a minute, please. Sit down. I have no intention of being unnecessarily cryptic or rude. As you know, I am a lawyer. In placing the advertisement in the papers I was asking not for myself but for a client."

"I see." Melicent resumed her chair.

"I should have said at the outset that after our talk to-day you will be quite free to investigate me, and I am sure you will find that anything I recommend is reliable. The client who desires the services of such a person as yourself is also a thoroughly reliable individual; but the work--the exact nature of which I confess I cannot describe--is of a most highly confidential nature. I can assure you, however, that the work is not arduous and the remuneration is excellent. By the way, what was your salary?"

"I had worked up to fifty dollars a week."

"My client would at least double that sum."

Wonderful! exclaimed Melicent inwardly. In the past weeks she had applied for jobs that offered as little as fifteen dollars a week, well realizing that the excellent salary paid by the broker was now unattainable. Wonderful, such an offer; but why?

"If you could give me some idea of the nature of the work?" Melicent said.

Mr. Reese shook his head and made no answer.

Melicent waited. At last she said, "Was I the only person sent for?"

"No. I sent for several others but I asked them, obviously, to come at different times. I may say that I feel, now, I need not see any others."

"Any other girls, you mean?" said Melicent. "But are you not also seeing men?

Aren't you also C. K. 122?"

Mr. Reese started to smile and checked the expression. The combination had been at once a tribute to her perception and a criticism of her curiosity. He transmitted the latter into words. "I am afraid I cannot answer that. And I must add that if you are to take the position, curiosity will be one privilege not allowed to you. My client is thoroughly eccentric. No employee is permitted any room for private investigation or research. The tenure of the position would be for one year only and I may say that it has been held by others before you and at the end of the year they have expressed complete satisfaction with the arrangement."

Melicent was thoughtful. She had noticed that the lawyer had always referred to the mysterious employer as "my client" without any reference to the sex of the client. She was about to speak again when Mr. Reese placed the palms of his hands together and tapped his fingers against each other in repeated rotation.

"I have been satisfactorily impressed by you, Miss Waring. I believe you would be precisely the sort of person for whom my client is looking. Your letter was excellent.

Naturally, this interview is puzz1ing to you. I have decided to go one or two steps further.

The fact is, that while I do not know exactly what your duties will be, I can assure you of my client's reliability, and I assure you again that others who held the same position were satisfied. I think I may add to that, that the salary to be paid for the year's work is five thousand dollars with a generous bonus at the end, if your employment has given complete satisfaction."

Melicent nodded mutely. A hundred doubts and a hundred questions rose to her mind. Her hand gripped the arm of the chair. The lawyer had paused, but when she did not speak he continued:

"Would you consider accepting a position at that figure for which you have my word that it is respectable and--?"

He stopped.

"What were you about to add?" Melicent challenged him.

"I was about to say 'safe.'"

"And you suddenly felt you should not say it?"

"Not at all," he reassured her too emphatically. "There is in the situation nothing, I feel sure, of physical peril; otherwise I should not be urging you to take the position.

There will be, beyond doubt, moments of difficulty, but nothing really dangerous to you; moments which will require, as I have suggested, resourcefulness and coolness."

"Your client," demanded Melicent, "is not insane?"

"No; nothing like that. Only, a person in a rather extraordinary situation of very considerable significance. You will take the place?"

Curiosity lured Melicent; and the lawyer saw it and he seemed to like it. The dare in the thing as much as the money led the girl on; but she caught herself before she became committed to this strange adventure.

"Could I have till to-morrow to think about it?"

"Till to-morrow morning," Mr. Reese nodded. "Very well. If you decide to accept, telephone me at ten o'clock. My client lives in Connecticut. In the event of your acceptance, we will leave from my office by motor about nine o'clock the following day.

You would, of course, bring your luggage."

Melicent rose and the lawyer also stood. "You might tell me one thing I am sure,"

she said as she held out her hand. "It would help me to decide if I could only know whether your client is a man or a woman."

Mr. Reese considered. "My client is a woman of sixty."

"Thank you," Melicent answered, with some relief and closed behind her the door of his office.

She had the position, if she would take it. Five thousand dollars for the year, a hundred dollars a week. That meant the solution of all her money difficulties, the wiping out of the debt to Helen, a surplus to save and have on hand when this strange year would be over. And perhaps also from this peculiar employer a bonus, if her services were satisfactory. What might the services be which called for special coolness and resource?

The very elements which frightened her when she thought them over also attracted her; adventure, surely, of some unusual sort. But Mr. Reese had told her that she could check up on him and verify his reputation. No sense in leaping unnecessarily in the dark.

Melicent went into a telephone booth and called the brokerage house for which she had worked. When she was answered she asked for Mr. Wade.

"This is Melicent Waring."

"Hello, Miss Waring," Wade's voice greeted her. "I suppose you're asking about Robert Reese."

"Yes; how did you know?"

"He asked about you yesterday. I was glad to give him the best words possible.

Now you want to know about him?"

"If you please."

"Well, if he wants you, you likely are in luck," Wade's rapid voice came back to her. "Old Robert Reese is one of the richest lawyers in New York. Has one of the finest reputations in the state. Can't be bought. Can't be retained on any terms by just anybody.

Handles nothing but the best cases for the best families. Name's absolutely at the top of the list. Family's in the Blue Book. Word's as good as gold. Why?"

"I can't tell you why, but that's what I wanted to know."

"Righto." Mr. Wade hung up.

Melicent was on the sidewalk again, walking toward the next subway station. It was all true and it was all right--at least within the limits which Mr. Reese had described.

There was a job at five thousand dollars--with a possible bonus. The job could be hers; she would be physically safe but--but what? There was altogether too much withheld from her, too much secrecy and reassurance, and too much inducement offered in money and bonus; something about the situation was very strange. But she knew she was going to take it; and having decided at that moment, she decided to take no risk of weakening under Helen's argument; for if Helen learned of the conditions of the job, she would surely argue against it. So· she would not tell everything to Helen.

Helen was at home when Melicent returned and she had ignored the fact that it was Melicent's turn to get supper and had opened one of the perpetual cans. She looked out of the kitchenette when she heard Melicent's key in the door.

"Gee, I'm glad to see you, Melicent. All day I've been worrying about you going down to apply for that awful job."

"It won't be awful; it's just to read to and be polite to a rich old lady of sixty who wants a lot of attention. That's all."

"That can't be all--from that ad."

"Oh," said Melicent lightly. "A lawyer wrote the ad. He would. The work's in Connecticut. I start day after to-morrow." She did not explain that she had not actually accepted yet.

"Good money?" asked Helen, still suspiciously.

Melicent did not dare tell the actual amount offered. "They'll settle the actual amount later--but I'll be well paid."

"You're not telling me all about it, Melicent!"

"Maybe not; but I'll tell you this: I called up Mr. Wade about Mr. Reese and he said I was absolutely safe on taking anything Mr. Reese recommended." She repeated what Mr. Wade had said; and with that Helen had to be satisfied.

Next morning Melicent phoned Mr. Reese, "I'll take it."

"Splendid. I am very much pleased. You will never regret it. Be at this office with your luggage to-morrow at nine."

Besides Mr. Reese and a chauffeur, there was a young man waiting at the office when Melicent appeared promptly at nine. Mr. Reese introduced him to Melicent as Mr.

Granger. He also had luggage and evidently had come upon an appointment similar to Melicent's. Was he the young man selected from those who had answered C. K. 122?

The preparations for departure were unemotional. The chauffeur took Melicent's luggage to the car and returned for Mr. Granger's, and Mr. Reese then added to the introduction of Mr. Granger: "He is also going to be employed at this time by my client."

Melicent and the young man regarded each other with greater interest. The capacity in which Mr. Granger was to be employed by Mr. Reese's client was not mentioned. Did Mr. Granger or even Mr. Reese know exactly what it was? Melicent wondered. They all went down to the car and the chauffeur, without requiring direction, immediately started.

The three passengers sat on the wide seat, Melicent on one side, Mr. Granger on the other, with Mr. Reese between them; and across him, Melicent and Mr. Granger conversed, now and then. Mr. Reese, for the most part, was silent-almost moody. Now and then he made some ordinary comment but his mind, obviously, was busy with what was before them.

Mr. Granger elaborately ignored Mr. Reese's preoccupation. He was a resourceful-looking young man; had not resource also been demanded of him? He had blond hair and dark brown eyes, a complexion which indicated he had spent most of his time outdoors, and there was about him an unnamable suggestion of sophistication and cosmopolitanism. He said nothing about himself, but suddenly Mr. Reese, coming out of one of his interludes of absentmindedness, said: "Mr. Granger has been an airplane pilot; twice he has jumped with a parachute."

"One time," said Mr. Granger, as though excusing himself, "I had to."

"The other time?" asked Melicent.

"No harm practicing," said Mr. Granger and returned to their previous impersonalities.

They had left New York City behind and having passed Port Chester turned on to the Boston Post Road into Connecticut.

The trees had changed and the countryside was a panorama of magnificent autumn colors. Melicent found that being out of the city, and realizing that she had employment, contributed a bracing effect which gave keener zest to the excitement of speeding to the unknown.

Three hours after they had left New York they turned from the Post Road and presently reached a small country town, of which Melicent had never heard before, called Williamsborough. It was at this point that Mr. Reese abruptly volunteered information:

"We are going to the Cornwall estate; it is more than five hundred acres. My client is Miss Hannah Cornwall."

"Yes," said Melicent, though the name meant nothing to her. Mr. Granger said nothing but Melicent had the impression that the name meant much more to him.

They reached a road that, at an enormous iron gate, ran through a tunnel of autumn clad trees and finally debouched on a vast lawn in the center· of which was a colossal house of brick, slate, and wrought iron. As they drove toward it Melicent had opportunity to appreciate its size and magnificence as well as its somberness and austerity. The car stopped under a wide porte-cochère. Mr. Reese, Mr. Granger and she walked across the porch and rang the doorbell.

The door was opened by a woman. Melicent was never sure afterwards just what remarkable feature of that woman's appearance she had noticed first. Perhaps she had noticed them all simultaneously; the extremely long and aristocratically turned nose, the stubborn and self-willed chin, the high piled, smoothly dressed white hair, the coal black, snapping eyes.

There was no possibility that this could be any subordinate. At once, Melicent knew this was Miss Cornwall and she heard Miss Cornwall's voice ring like metal suspended on a string struck by another piece of metal.

"Good morning, Mr. Reese. Thank you so much for coming. I am my own butler this morning because we are changing all the servants."

"Exactly," said Mr. Reese, taking off his hat. "I quite understand, Miss Cornwall.

May I present Miss Waring, about whom I have wired you, and also Mr. Granger?"

Melicent felt the black eyes penetrating and searching her; then they moved to Mr. Granger.

"How do you do, Miss Waring. Won't you all come in? How do you do, Mr.

Granger. If you will go in the library, please, Miss Waring, I will see you in a few moments."

Melicent walked into the hall with Mr. Reese, through open doors and past parted portieres. She could see a number of people sitting in a room that evidently was a living room. She assumed that these were the new servants of whom Miss Cornwall had spoken.

She had little time to survey them, however, for Mr. Reese opened a door on the left of the hall and bowed her into a vast library.

When they had taken chairs she said: "Did Miss Cornwell say she was changing all her servants?"

"Yes; she did."

Melicent felt that, under the circumstances, she had a right to ask definite questions. "Why?"

"Because it is her custom," replied Mr. Reese frankly, "to change all her employees once a year."

"All?"

"All," answered Mr. Reese, "except her lawyers, that is. My client is, as I have told you, in an unusual situation. She does not care for faithful servants or for old retainers. Each year she makes a year-long contract with all her servants and employees and pays them well; at the end of the time they are dismissed and new ones take their places. It is merely one of her--shall we say--policies."

"I observed when I mentioned my client's name in the car," he continued, "that it did not seem to enlighten you. There is no reason that you should not know about Miss Cornwall and her family what is very generally known. The Cornwall fortune is one of the great fortunes of America--of the world. For three generations it has been gathering and increasing until it came into the hands, some fifty years ago, of Silas Cornwall--the only surviving member of the family of his generation. He, however, had six children--of whom Miss Hannah Cornwall was the fourth child.

"Silas Cornwall was an energetic and able business man and more than doubled the fortune; it was entirely in his hands when he died; and he bequeathed it in a rather extraordinary way. His entire holdings--less of course the inevitable taxes--were to be kept together; there was to be no division or diminution whatever of the principal; but all his children, as long as they lived, would share equally in the income of the estate.

"That is, as long as all six were living, each would have a sixth--and it is no secret that, in recent years, each sixth share of the income, only, has run over a million a year.

Whenever a child died, however, his or her interest in the estate ceased; the grandchildren would not inherit. The estate would continue intact and the income be divided into fewer shares until at last all would belong to the last survivor.

"The sole survivor not only would have the whole income but also would, at last, obtain title and ownership of the entire estate; he or she--whoever it might be--would then be empowered to spend not only the income but the principal, to invest it, bestow it or dissipate it, as he or she would choose.

"These facts became public, inevitably, with the probating of the will following Silas Cornwall's death some forty years ago. Naturally, they attracted a great deal of notoriety. If you were older, you would have undoubtedly remembered it; but after the sensation died down, little occurred to stir it up again. The six heirs each chose his or her own place and manner of living; and all continued to survive until, about a month ago, Daniel Cornwall died, rather suddenly, in Dutch Guiana. There was something in the papers about it but there were both a spectacular killing in New York and a shipwreck about the same time. The comment on the Cornwall affairs could easily have escaped you.

"I mention it because it will help you to understand that Miss Cornwall naturally has been affected by the death of her brother. The first break in the family circle in more than forty years was a great shock to her."

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Melicent, "but may I ask, was it a natural death?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because of an implication I gathered from your tone."

"I meant none. Daniel Cornwall's death was, of course, natural; it should have been almost expected. He was not a young man and he had chosen to live in a very trying country; however, it immensely disturbed Miss Cornwall and filled her with forebodings.

You will have to deal with them undoubtedly. Here is Miss Cornwall now, I believe."

Miss Cornwall stepped into the room. Melicent had been so much impressed by her features that she had given little attention to her dress, which she now saw swept the floor and was cut in a style long since forgotten, a style that belonged to the era of horse cars and round-hatted policemen.

"I have had your suitcases sent to your room, Miss Waring. I will wish to talk to you after dinner, which you will eat with me in the dining room. Until then I am afraid I will be busy instructing the new servants in their duties. You may pass the time as you wish. But I trust that you will not leave the grounds." She turned to Mr. Reese. "I would like to have a few words with you."

Melicent withdrew from the library and found herself left entirely to her own resources. She remembered the hours that followed all the rest of her life. She used them to explore the house and immediate grounds. It was an extraordinarily large house and contained more than forty rooms, many of which were locked, many others of which bore no marks of occupancy for decades. Suites of rooms had been modernized, and in those, apparently, Miss Cornwall and her guests, if she had any, made their dwelling. The grounds were under formal cultivation for several acres around the house. Beyond that on either side were woods--woods in which there were paths that led to small lakes, a path that led along a brook, an old bridle path on which there were no footprints of horses, and a path that led to a Japanese garden.

On the other side of the Japanese garden were acres of woodland and out of the woods, apparently following no path, suddenly stepped Mr. Granger.

"Hello!" he hailed as he saw Melicent.

"Hello."

Granger looked about quickly and then advanced close to her. "Do you know where you are now?" he asked her. "I saw, in the car, you hadn't the least idea."

"No, I hadn't," admitted Melicent. "But I have now."

"That's good. We have the bond of arriving here together in common, and probably under rather similar compulsions. I am going to presume on it. What do you do here ?"

"I haven't been told yet. What do you do?"

"I am yet to be told entirely, but, as Reese said, I can fly, and there's an airplane kept back there," he nodded into the woods. "Beyond this patch of trees there's another clearing with level ground enough for a take-off and a neat little one passenger ship in a hangar." Granger stopped and demanded suddenly: "You're the answer to C. V. 164, aren't you?" Melicent nodded. "As you're C. K. 122."

"Exactly; then I'll show you this. My predecessor at piloting was moved out before I was moved in; but he stuck this in under a dial where another pilot was sure to find it." And Granger handed over a much-folded paper on which was written:

"The old dame never leaves the ground; she never even looks at the ship; but it's always got to be ready. You go up now and then to prove it. That's all. Figure it out your own way; and good luck to you."

Melicent looked up. "Have you started to figure it out?" she asked.

"A quick, emergency get-away would be my present guess," observed Granger, taking back the paper. "Now some day do as much for me. Beautiful place, isn't it?"

"It is very beautiful, but--"

"Say it!"

"Lonesome, isn't it?"

"Lonesome doesn't start to say it. It's gruesome. Going back to the house?" he invited and then corrected, "Perhaps we'd better not go back together."

"Why not?"

"I don't know why not, but I'm affected that way by the place. I live over the garage. Meet me here sometimes, will you?"

Melicent found Miss Cornwall in the library and, evidently, expecting her.

"You have not been off the place, Miss Waring?"

"No, but I have been all through the house and on several of the paths. It is very beautiful."

Miss Cornwall nodded. "It is quite lovely. Dinner will be in fifteen minutes; it is always punctual."

At dinner Miss Cornwall and Melicent sat at opposite ends of a long table and were served by a uniformed servant. Few words passed between them during the meal.

Of course, Melicent had no basis for comparison, but she felt that her employer must be more abstracted than usual; that is, she could not believe that anyone could spend so much of her time, ordinarily, staring into empty space.

Mr. Reese had departed, Miss Cornwall said, but added no other information.

From what Melicent knew, therefore, this old woman was alone in the great house with her and with Granger, who was dining elsewhere, and with the staff of strange servants which she had engaged to-day. Well, it was what she chose.

After the meal was over, the two went into the library, and when Miss Cornwall made no suggestion Melicent selected a book and read at it. Miss Cornwall soon picked up another book and read it, repeating the words to herself. At least, that was what Melicent thought she was doing when she saw her lips move; but after a time Miss Cornwall spoke audibly.

She probably was not aware that her whisper could be heard, but it was very quiet in the room and Melicent was decidedly on edge.

"Doubtless even a tulip hopes," she made out the whispered and rewhispered words. "Doubtless even a tulip hopes." With repetition, they became so distinct that Melicent was sure this was what she was saying, meaningless as it was: "Doubtless even a tulip hopes." Suddenly Miss Cornwall became aware that she was speaking audibly:

"Did you hear what I said?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"What was it?"

"'Doubtless even a tulip hopes,'" repeated Melicent.

"Does it mean anything to you?"

"No."

"See if you can find any meaning in it. Now it is time to go to bed. You will come with me, please."

They went upstairs together and through a long hall. Miss Cornwall stopped at a door. "This is my room." She opened it. Behind the door was a vast room with casement windows and canopied bed. Both women entered it. Another door in the room was opened by Miss Cornwall and she beckoned Melicent to follow her through it. She switched on the electric lights and a second chamber proved also to be a bedroom--a smaller, brighter, and more ordinary bedroom. "This is your room," Miss Cornwall said.

For a moment she hesitated and then looked directly at the girl. "I suppose you will want to know why I haven given no name to your duties and just what they are."

Melicent grew tense. She realized that now and at last she was going to know the answer to the mystery of the advertisement. "Yes," she said, "I do."

A curious expression came on the woman's face, an expression that made it haggard, an expression composed of fear and determination, an expression that alarmed Melicent. Miss Cornwall's voice was almost a whisper. "Nominally you will be my secretary. It will be necessary at this time for you to swear that under no circumstances and to no one you utter a syllable about the arrangements I will now discuss. Swear."

Melicent felt the hand of the old woman on her shoulder. "Of course," she said falteringly, "I swear."

"Nominally you will be called my secretary," Miss Cornwall repeated, "but it is not for that I am paying you five thousand dollars a year. Your only real duty will be very simple. It is this: Each night at nine-fifteen we will both retire. You will go into your room and lock the door. I will go into my room and lock the door. On your bed I have laid out a nightdress and night cap. When you are ready and I am ready we will open the door between our rooms. You will go into my room and I will go into yours. We will turn out the lights immediately and lock the door between our rooms. You will spend the night in my bed and I will spend it in your bed in your room. That is your sale real duty."

Half an hour later they had exchanged rooms. Melicent dressed in a long nightgown and wearing a nightcap, was lying in the canopied bed, alone, behind locked doors, and her blood ran cold with a kind of horror that she had never known existed in this modern world.

CHAPTER II

THE first night Melicent spent at Blackcroft was a night of absolute terror. What had happened to her had happened so quickly that it was not until she was alone in the dark that she realized its full and horrible portent. Miss Cornwall had made her dress in night clothes like her own and made her sleep in the big bedroom in the canopied bed for a reason that became obvious to Melicent. Miss Cornwall was afraid. She was afraid of somebody or something. She was afraid that somebody or something would steal up to her bed at night and she had hired another person to live in her house and be a substitute for her every night after she had retired, so that the some one or the something, if it appeared, would wreak its vengeance upon, not Miss Cornwall, but her employee--upon Melicent.

During the first half hour the idea was so horrible that Melicent could entertain no other. Not a single person in the house, not a single person in the world, would realize that she and Miss Cornwall had changed places. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in the long year that lay ahead. She thought frantically of getting up and leaving the house, which had suddenly grown ominous. But it would be worse to move through those empty halls in the dark than it would be to wait, terror stricken and weak, until the coming of daylight. Not five thousand, not ten thousand, not any sum of money could repay her for three hundred and sixty-five nights of unrelieved dreadfulness. She lay on her pillow, in the ruffles on the dress and the lace cap, the living substitute for Miss Cornwall in case anyone was bent upon doing ill to that old lady.

Melicent could feel the perspiration oozing from the palms of her hands. Noises in the trees outside the window or inarticulate noises in the house brought her automatically up on her elbow, waiting for she did not know what. In an hour the house became utterly silent. But in that hour Melicent had regained a little of her normal self-control. She was able to think and reason. She fought back the terrors of the dark and the horror of her strange occupation, and tried to reassure herself. Mr. Reese had said that Miss Cornwall was eccentric. Perhaps Miss Cornwall had no real fear, no real enemy, but only a phobia, a dread of going to sleep that was founded on empty imagination. Perhaps she had no real reason for wanting some one else disguised as herself to sleep in her bed every night.

Perhaps it was just the working of a warped, tortuous, and unhappy mind. Perhaps she, Melicent, was in less danger here than in her own apartment in New York.

Melicent was well educated. She knew something about psychology and she knew it was quite possible for a human being to invent some such plan merely to appease its own inner mental disturbances and not because that person had physical enemies. Half of Melicent's mind was alert for the footsteps of an unknown assassin; the other half was groping along the paths of deliberate logic for strength to spend the night--a year of nights--in the great dark room lying in the canopied antique bed.

Little fragments of thought helped the latter half of her mind. Mr. Reese had said that other women had held the position Melicent now held and had expressed their satisfaction with it at the end of a year. That thought gave Melicent courage. Other women had slept in that great bed, trembling, as she was trembling, for the first few nights, and finally accepted the process as routine. Doubtless she would also grow accustomed to it. Doubtless at the end of a year when she left the bizarre services of Miss Cornwall, she would be glad that she had earned so much money and she would laugh at this first awful night.

She knew that she was not going to sleep and yet she had been carefully instructed by Miss Cornwall never, under any circumstances, to turn on her light. She could see nothing except the vague gray corners that represented the casement windows.

Before she had retired she had noticed that those windows were arranged so that they could be opened only a little way, and she had noticed also that the frames were made of metal. The door to the hall was locked. It was like all the other doors in the house, heavy oak, but there was no reassurance in these thoughts, because, while they might merely indicate that Miss Cornwall was afraid to go to sleep without taking abnormal steps to protect herself, they might also indicate that she had reasons to take those steps.

The airplane which Miss Cornwall never used but ordered always ready for use might be part of the same aberration, and, equally well, it might be a sanely provided means of sudden escape from a real and tangible danger.

There was the sudden death of Miss Cornwall's brother which had given her a great shock; was there a secret in that death? Melicent's mind went on and on. More than a million a year income for each of the Cornwalls when they were six; so the share of each was even greater now; and it would be greater yet, if another were killed. But how could anyone who had a million a year want more? Melicent could not imagine it; but she knew that greed for money seemed only to grow with gains.

After an interminable time Melicent realized that she could hear a clock striking somewhere in the house. A deep-voiced clock that chimed every quarter of an hour.

Thereafter her frozen vigilance was punctuated by those chimes.

"Doubtless even a tulip hopes!" Meaningless; but Miss Cornwall, who had repeated it over and over, knew it was meaningless, and she wanted a meaning for it.

Why?

Melicent heard the clock strike twelve and one and two. Then lightly and fitfully she fell into slumber. At an indefinite time afterward she opened her eyes with a start of terror and perceived that the gray light of day was seeping through the casement windows. She woke up enough to remember her situation, but the return of light reassured her and presently she managed to sink into a real, restful sleep, which lasted for a few hours. She was awakened again by the turning of the key in the door that led to her own room, which Miss Cornwall occupied.

It startled her out of her sleep, but she opened her eyes only the slightest bit. Miss Cornwall pulled back the door and peered through it. She seemed satisfied presently that Melicent was still asleep and she shut the door again without locking it. The clock downstairs struck seven and Melicent thought that probably seven was Miss Cornwall's rising time, since her time of retiring was so early.

Melicent was not entirely rested, but she had slept enough so she felt she could go through the day that lay ahead. She arose. In one of the long mirrors in the room she saw her reflection. In the white nightdress and the lace cap she was fantastic and her face was very pale. She stretched, and in her bare feet walked toward the door. Afterward she realized she had not knocked, partly because of the fact that the years spent living with Helen had made her forget the convention of knocking, and partly because her relief at having ended her first night's duties overcame her manners. She pushed open the door that led to her own room.

Miss Cornwall, fully dressed, was sitting in front of a little writing desk, reading a letter. As she heard the door open she looked up. Her face became tense with anger. At the same time Melicent realized she had intruded and pretended that she had not at first seen Miss Cornwall. It was a quick automatic dissembling.

"I am sorry," Melicent said breathlessly. "I didn't mean to intrude. I thought you had gone downstairs."

Miss Cornwall spoke severely. "One thing you will learn immediately in this house is never to open any door or enter any room without knocking. In my day it was merely good manners, but in this age, I find that manners don't include it, so I make it a rule."

"I am really terribly sorry," Melicent answered. She backed out of the room and shut the door. Again standing in the big room, chilly because it had grown cold during the night, and unwilling to go back to bed, Melicent paused momentarily, both physically and in her train of thought. Miss Cornwall's anger had been all out of proportion to the interruption. Uppermost in Melicent's mind was the idea that at the earliest possible moment she must find out if Miss Cornwall, and hence she, herself, was in real danger, or if the ominous charade she was to play every night was merely a gratification of an old lady's whims.

For a second time something of the feeling Helen had had when she read the advertisement stole over Melicent. It was not the fear she had felt during the night, but something subtler. A presentiment. A dim warning. A reflection of conditions in other people's brains. Melicent did a thing which she felt her extraordinary position excused.

She bent over and looked through the keyhole of the door. She was in time to see Miss Cornwall hide the letter. A moment later Miss Cornwall opened the door. Her face was still severe.

"You may come in and dress now, but you must never forget any of my instructions. You will find me downstairs in the breakfast room."

Miss Cornwall then walked into her own bedroom, closed the door, and presently Melicent heard the door in the hall slam. She realized that the act would be complete when she came from her own room. The servants would see each of the two women going into their own rooms at night, coming out in the morning, and the idea that they had exchanged places in the dark would occur to no one.

Melicent did not dress immediately. She was not a curious girl, but every nerve in her body had been alarmed. She felt justified in taking any available steps to learn the exact elements which controlled the doings at Blackcroft.

As soon as she was sure Miss Cornwall had descended the front stairs she secured the letter and read it. Any reassurance she may have derived from her thoughts on the previous dark night were dispelled forever by that letter.

It was sent from an address in Dutch Guiana, where, Melicent remembered, Daniel Cornwall had died, and from the first word to the last a subtle horror stalked through it.

My dear Aunt Hannah: You will be surprised to receive this letter and still more surprised by its contents. Possibly you will think I am not in my right senses, and doubtless you will choose to ignore rather than to heed the disturbing thoughts I would like to present to you.

It has often occurred to me that Grandfather Silas' will held a possibility which he did not consider. To divide the income of his estate equally between you six children was logical. But to leave the estate itself to the last of you to survive might suggest to an unscrupulous person various enterprises. When I wrote you last Easter about my father's and your brother's death I described it as heart failure. Such the doctor believed it to be.

And yet at the time there was nothing wrong with father's heart. He was a man in perfect health. The blow of his death was so great to me--for I was very fond of father--that I did not start to think about the oddness of it at once. When I did, however, I went to a doctor here who had been a friend of father's for many years and talked to him about it. The doctor agreed with me that it was virtually impossible for my father to have died from heart failure.

I do not wish to distress you with the details, but I would like to impress you with them. Briefly, I had an autopsy made and there were distinct traces of poison in the vital organs. The poison was a rather rare one, and one that sometimes occurs in small quantities in normal human beings, so that we could not be absolutely sure that it was the cause of his death.

To revert to the original subject, however, if some person who had a strong influence over one of you six heirs should deliberately wish to do away with the others, that person could eventually come into the possession of the entire Cornwall fortune.

Father had no enemy in Dutch Guiana. Every one loved him. I think he was poisoned.

The only reason I can see for it would be the one described above.

Perhaps I am a fantastic alarmist in writing such a letter as this and it is just possible that father was not poisoned at all, but I am writing to Uncle Theodore and to Aunt Alice and Aunt Lydia as well as to yourself. I do not know the address of Uncle Everitt, but I presume you are still corresponding with him and I hope, if you feel it worth while, you will forward this opinion to him.

Of course, this may all be a neurosis of mine and nothing else, but since the one who inherits Grandfather Silas' fortune is the one who lives the longest, it is easy to become neurotic contemplating the possibilities it offers to designing and reckless persons. Sometimes I get the feeling of a trap about the family which is about to be sprung.

I may be coming to the States this fall and, if so, I shall call on you and it will be a pleasure to see you after all these years. I couldn't have been more than twelve when father took me abroad. If you feel this to be foolish speculation on my part, please ignore it and forgive me.

Your affectionate nephew,

DONALD CORNWALL.

P. S. Shortly before my father died he received through the mail a meaningless five word message, which I quote herewith: "Doubtless Even A Tulip Hopes." You may think that for me to connect this with the death of my father is very foolish; but can you see in the message what I now see?

D.C.

There was no longer any doubt in Melicent's mind about the household to which she now belonged. The old lady's alarming arrangement to exchange beds every night was not an empty and senseless quirk of her mind. It had point and purpose.

The five words which Hannah Cornwall whispered ceaselessly last evening no longer were babble; they, beyond doubt, also had purpose and point. Then, in a flash Melicent saw what it was which Miss Cornwall had been trying to discover with her whispered repetition: The words themselves might be meaningless, but the first letters of the five words spelled DEATH.

It must have been this which Donald Cornwall had come to see and which had become so plain that he was sure his aunt too would see it. But had she--yet?

Melicent carefully restored the letter to its hiding place. Automatically but rapidly she began to dress, her thoughts far away from her actions. She realized that Hannah Cornwall's household was one of six. Six households where an elderly man or woman had spent the days and the years with a grim determination to outlive five brothers and sisters so as to become the sole survivor who, at last, could possess and dispose of the entire huge fortune. A hundred million at least it must be, if it paid each of six heirs more than a million a year; perhaps two hundred million. She could perceive vaguely why Miss Cornwall changed her servants every year. It would never do to let any servant learn the truth about the family, to grow into the family, and to brood over the strange possibilities inspired by the will. She could see why Miss Cornwall wanted a substitute in her bed. At any time some one who had gained the confidence of one of the six brothers and sisters, or even one of the brothers and sisters, might suddenly decide to tamper with fate and make himself or herself the last living Cornwall heir.

Melicent knew that she could never look upon Blackcroft again as a beautiful place or a romantic place, or even as a somewhat bleak place inhabited by a somewhat eccentric old lady. From now on the house would be full of threat and danger. It would be sinister and frightening. And even if the letter from Donald Cornwall came to nothing, even if the year that lay ahead was uneventful, it would, nevertheless, be a year of continuous fear for Melicent.

She wondered if it would not be best to leave at once. The five thousand dollars was a small inducement in the face of the facts. Nothing could repay her for the nightly vigils that lay ahead. She thought that it might be best for her to give up the idea of staying, to go back to the city, and to look again for a humble, commonplace and safe job at fifteen dollars a week. She might have done so if she had had more time in which to consider. But though it frightened her, it fascinated her and then events shaped themselves so rapidly that she was involved in them and carried away by them before she could come to a decision.

Her mind was numb with doubt and half paralyzed with the shadowy vision of possible disaster which the letter had revealed when she left her room.

Miss Cornwall was sitting in the breakfast room. In front of her was a cup of coffee, which was untouched. Sunlight streamed upon the elderly lady and broad lawns were visible through the windows. Under any other circumstances the setting and the day would have enchanted Melicent. Miss Cornwall's searching eyes studied the girl.

"Did you sleep well?"

Melicent found herself replying in a commonplace tone. "Quite well, thank you."

"Sit down. I should imagine you slept very little." The older woman's smile was dry. "Various employees of mine who have previously undergone the same experience have found it something of an ordeal at first. You must forgive me for it. You may think that I seem to exercise an undue caution in what we will call all my habits of living. You must learn to accept it as an old woman's fears. Suppose we do not mention it any more. I have other similar attributes, such as overseeing all my own cooking. You will learn to ignore them because they are quite harmless."

Melicent did not reply. She took her place at the opposite side of the breakfast table and began to eat an orange. It would not do to tell Miss Cornwall that she had read the letter from her nephew and that she knew exactly why Miss Cornwall took such precautions for the security of her life. Even if she decided to quit her bizarre job, it would be better never to give her complete reasons for doing so.

Miss Cornwall spoke again. "I have a guest coming to-day--my brother Everitt. I sent for him to discuss some family business."

Melicent knew what business Miss Cornwall intended to discuss with her brother Everitt, but her face was noncommittal. "I see," she said.

"He will arrive about eleven o'clock, I believe. You will find him a rather interesting person."

"I will be very glad to meet him."

There was an interval of silence, during which the dishes were cleared away and the substantial part of the meal was served. Melicent had an opportunity to reflect how much she would have enjoyed life at Blackcroft without this somber background. She could never enjoy it. The lawns, the woods, the sunshine, the beautiful things in the house, the perfect service were now merely incidents of routine.

Miss Cornwall drank a little of her coffee. "A few other friends are rather constant visitors here. I am interested in ancient cultures, particularly Greek culture, and I hope some day to be able to found a university which would perpetually propagate my views and ideals. A Professor Coleman, who is an old and very dear friend of mine, shares my loyalty to the grandeur which was Greece, and in the event that I am able some day to endow such a university, I shall put him at the head of it. You will meet him here."

"I see," Melicent replied. "He must also be a very interesting person."

That ended the breakfast conversation. Soon afterward Miss Cornwall left the table and Melicent, after finishing her coffee, followed her from the room.

Miss Cornwall, however, had vanished and Melicent could not find her downstairs. All the rooms were large and empty and silent. After a half hour had passed and she had not been summoned, Melicent felt the effect of this stillness. It wore on her nerves, which had not entirely recovered from the shock of her experience on the previous night. Finally she could not stand it any longer. She opened the great door and went out on the terrace. The sun was quite warm and she walked slowly through the fading garden at the side of the house and on upon a path through the trees which took her to the Japanese garden.

Granger was awaiting her. At least, he was there and it was the place he had appointed, yesterday, for their meeting; and she was aware more definitely than she had been the moment before that she had chosen this direction for the sake of finding him.

"Good morning," he greeted her. "Now do you know what your job is?"

"Yes," said Melicent. "I know."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"As I expected." He accepted this refusal cheerily. "There's something else I can't tell you; but there's this I can," and he drew a businesslike looking automatic revolver from a pocket. "Arms have been issued, at least to me." He replaced the weapon. "Have you time to talk?"

She went with him to a low stone seat; and she was more glad of his company than she betrayed; he seemed sane and competent and self-assured.

"I hear Everitt's arriving," Granger observed.

"Yes," said Melicent. Friendly as Granger was, she was determined to share no confidences with him, as much because of an instinctive caution as because of her pledge to Miss Cornwall.

"He's a human one--perhaps the best of the lot," went on Granger cheerfully.

"You'll like him. He's the oldest brother, next to Daniel, who died. Originally, there were six children; but you know one of them recently died?"

"Yes; I know it."

"It means a couple of hundred thousand extra a year for the five survivors; but puts them all even more on pins and needles."

"What do you mean--pins and needles ?"

"Because old Silas Cornwall's will was a joker. I can't figure out whether he hated his children or whether he wanted his will to be an inspiration to them; but the way he fixed it, they all share alike at first but, as they die, the shares of the deceased go to the survivors till there's only one left--and then he, or she, does whatever he pleases. It set them all off in the world's championship race to be the last survivor. It's pretty funny, because they're all trying different schemes to outlive the others."

"What sort of schemes?"

"Well, you're getting an inside view of Hannah's. Forty years ago, when the will was first made public, the various systems of the various sons and daughters to insure long life got plenty of publicity; one of them became a vegetarian; another one lived mostly on cheese; another one spent five years in a sanitarium getting herself in perfect physical condition. It was pretty funny then, I guess, but now they are all old and I suppose nature will claim them one by one in the next ten years. Hannah's pretty nearly the youngest and Hannah looks a bit rocky to me."

"You haven't much feeling for them, have you?"

"Why should I? The income of the estate is divided between them and makes them as rich as coots, anyway. It's just greed that makes them want to be last. Greed and a determination that their particular notion of disposing of their father's fortune will be the one that is carried out. They each have a different plan, you know; our employer's is the Greek idea; she's devoting herself to the business of living longest so she can build a university which would bring back Athens in its glory."

"Yes," said Melicent, "she mentioned it."

"Some of the others have even more dangerous ideas."

"Dangerous how--to whom?"

"To themselves probably. Dangle a couple of hundred million before a few enterprising beneficiaries, and somebody is likely to prove impatient. Take Professor Coleman, purely as an imaginary example. If Hannah Cornwall lives longest, he'll have the two hundred million some day not too far away for his glorious Greek university--and himself; but not a cent will he get, if she dies first. It's the same way with the hangers-on and favorites of each of the others.

"Quite a situation for everybody, when you think of it. Each brother or sister has a little group whose whole fortune depends on him or her living longest--and the others dying first. I say, it's a situation in which you wouldn't be amazed if somebody got the feeling that Providence might not kill them off in quite the right order and so he ought to take a hand in the demises himself."

"I hadn't thought of it," confessed Melicent, staring, "in quite that way."

"The possibility of such assistance to Providence has occurred, I am quite sure,"

said Granger, "to our estimable employer. For whom, by the way, I must be continuing the rounds now. Meet me here again."

"Gladly," agreed Melicent, and returned to the house.

At eleven a car drove to the house and Everitt Cornwall arrived. Melicent was with Miss Cornwall when the butler let him into the hall. He joined them at once and held out both his hands to his sister.

"By George! This is nice. Haven't seen you in a long time. You don't look a day older." He was older than his sister hut, as Granger had said, Everitt Cornwall clearly had more of the humanities in his character. His eyes were blue and twinkled; his mustache was white but it twitched, frequently--an effect caused by a quick smile beneath it.

His sister was not smiling; indeed, Melicent could sense a stiffening in Miss Cornwall; and she guessed that, in mentioning age, Everitt Cornwall had tread rudely upon a sacred taboo.

"You look very well yourself, Everitt, and you are not a bit more serious than you used to be. This is my new secretary, Miss Waring."

He took Melicent's hand. "I am delighted to meet you. My sister must have interviewed thousands of secretaries before she chose you."

Melicent shook her head and smiled in return. "I was just the first to apply."

"An early bird, eh?--admirable virtue." He turned to his sister. "I say, it's gloomier here--except for this young lady's presence--even than I remembered. Never could see why you cling to this place. As far as I'm concerned, Connecticut is all waste land. Might as well live at the north pole. Never did think much of the temperate zone, anyway. Dull name for it."

He sat down in a chair and continued his staccato speech. Melicent liked him and wanted to stay, but she expected to be sent away. She looked at Miss Cornwall to see a signal; but Miss Cornwall apparently preferred that, for the present at least, Melicent remain.

"Tell me all the scandal, Hannah. I gathered from your letter that poor Daniel was very unwise to visit Dutch Guiana; but that was his idea. He was a dour bird, anyway.

Always was sure that the tropics were the place to live--if you could just dodge the diseases; so he'd stay there and spend his time and money dodging. Always had a trench system full of scientists keeping the whang-poo fever or something or other at a distance from him. Well, what is, is. I suppose we're all getting pretty old. How's Alice and her family? What's Theodore doing with himself and do you ever hear from Lydia?"

Melicent perceived plainly that it was painful for Miss Cornwall to listen to this bright and airy talk. She was sure that Miss Cornwall conceived it her duty to apprise her brother of the contents of the letter from Dutch Guiana and that probably she would do this as soon as she was alone with him. But, for the present, Miss Cornwall put off this duty; that was why she allowed Melicent to remain; and soon, instead of dismissing Melicent, she excused herself and left her brother with her secretary.

Everitt immediately resumed his seat after his sister was gone and began to talk about her. "Hannah's--like the rest of the family--fretful, peevish, overcautious with herself. It's the Governor's fault--the way he left his pile to the one of us who'll live the longest. Every single member of my family has gone into competitive living and holding the clock on the performance of each of the others. It doesn't make for family feeling. But look at me. I drink. I smoke. My income is big enough, for me and for several of my friends, while I'm living. What do I care what happens when I pass on? And if I happen to outlive the lot and get all the money in the end--nobody knows what I'm going to do with it. I don't know myself. I've got no Prof. Coleman sitting on the sidelines praying for me to be the one to live longest--and then when I've got the money, passion and leave it to him. Not me. Why not have your fun? Well, I've had my fun and I may say, young lady, that if I were twenty years younger, a girl as pretty as yourself wouldn't be doomed to work for a woman."

Suddenly his tone changed. "How does it happen a girl like you takes a job like this? It's no place for youth. What makes you want to stay in a God-forsaken hole day in and day out with an old crab like Hannah?"

Melicent answered him quite frankly. "Just one thing. The difficulty of getting any sort of a job these days."

He shook his head sympathetically. "Too bad. You wouldn't consider becoming the secretary of a young fellow sixty-five, always on the go, traveling around the world, plenty of good company, no work except two or three letters a year?"

Melicent laughed. He was a very human old man and an extremely likeable one.

Shortly afterwards luncheon was announced and they dined together. Mr.

Cornwall made the meal a contrast to the preceding ones by his reminiscences, some of which were wholly incredible but all of which he insisted were authentic personal adventures. Melicent hoped he would stay a long time.

They were in the hall, leaving the dining room, when a maid spoke to Miss Cornwall. "The telegraph company at Williams borough is on the phone, ma'am; they have a message to be phoned to Mr. Everitt Cornwall which they will give only to him."

Everitt Cornwall, like Melicent, heard this; and he asked: "Where's the phone? I'll take it." And he followed the maid to the phone which was in a closet near the library.

Miss Cornwall started for the stairs, but, in her haste, stumbled on her absurdly long skirt. Melicent bent over to help her up but Miss Cornwall pushed her away.

"Run to my room! Quick! The phone is an extension. Listen to that telegram!"

"But it's not for you."

"Do as I say! Quick. These are not ordinary times. Run!" And Melicent ran.

As she picked up the receiver upstairs and heard voices, she recoiled; then she listened.

"Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes," a girl's voice was repeating; plainly she had read it before.

"Exactly, I get the words," replied Everitt Cornwall. "But are you sure the message is for me? It is absolutely meaningless."

"The address," said the voice from the telegraph office, "is to Everitt Cornwall, care of Miss Hannah Cornwall, Blackcroft, and with the request to phone it over promptly. It came from New York, signed 'John.'"

"And the message is," said Everitt Cornwall's voice, "'Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes.' Never had a horoscope in my life; never asked for one. The whole thing is absolutely meaningless. Must be mistake--or some joke. Much obliged to you, however."

He rang off.

Melicent looked about; Miss Cornwall had entered the room.

"What was it, Miss Waring?"

What was it? DEATH spelled itself in Melicent's mind as she separated the initial letters; the identical arrangement of initial letters which had made up a different meaningless message of five words received by the brother Daniel just previous to his death. DEATH spelled by the initials of a message otherwise utterly meaningless. It was impossible that it could be chance in both cases. In this case, did this mean also death to the recipient?

He had no idea of it.

"What was it, Miss Waring?" Hannah Cornwall repeated.

"Last night," said Melicent, "you asked me if a five word message, which you repeated, had any meaning to me."

"Yes," said Miss Cornwall, her face whiter than ever.

"It had no meaning at the time; but since then one occurred to me. 'Doubtless Even A Tulip Hopes.' The initial letters spell death."

"Yes," said Miss Cornwall; and Melicent knew then that, since last night, she had seen that herself. "Why do you mention that to me now?"

"Because the message which just came over the telephone was another meaningless message of five words. 'Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes.' It meant nothing to your brother; he could not believe it was for him. The initial letters of the five words are the same; they spell 'death.' "

"Yes," said Miss Cornwall. "Yes." She seemed incapable of articulating a syllable more; but soon she managed. "That was all of the message?"

"That was all; it came from New York, signed 'John.'"

"I know no John who would threaten us. None." She clutched the back of a chair to steady herself. "The message was for my brother Everitt, you say; you heard that? How was it addressed?"

"To Everitt Cornwall, in your care, Miss Cornwall, at Blackcroft."

"It was not addressed to me; you are sure of that? It was not addressed to me ?"

"It was not addressed to you, Miss Cornwall."

"Very well; you have done well. That's all. Don't say a word of this; not a syllable. Silence, complete and utter. A life may depend upon it! That is all; but stay in the house; remain, please, downstairs. Ask my brother to come to see me here immediately--immediately."

Melicent descended the gloomy stairs slowly; below in the great gray hall, Everitt Cornwall was whistling a gay, lively music hall tune, probably picked up in France.

"Oh, Miss Waring," he hailed her. "Was looking for you. By Jove, it was remarkable how, after hardly an hour with you, I've missed you. Lighten up this place, you do, I'll say."

"Mr. Cornwall, Miss Cornwall asks you to come to her room."

"Oh, no hurry about that."

"She thinks there is."

"But there can't be. See here, what's come over you? I swear, you're looking gloomy, too. See here, my girl, you mustn't let this place make you goofy. Cheer up."

"Your sister, Mr. Cornwall, wants very much to see you."

"Oh, all right. I'll get it over with; but will you be about then? Do; that's a nice girl." And he passed her on the stairs.

Melicent posted herself in the room below Miss Cornwall's; she could not hear even the hum of voices through the thick ceiling and floor, but she could make out, soon, the steps of a man pacing back and forth. Evidently argument was going on which kept him agitated.

At last the door above was opened and Everitt Cornwall descended.

"I'm glad you're here with my sister," he said to Melicent very seriously. "I am exceedingly glad. She needs some one like you. Don't leave her just now, will you?"

"Of course not," said Melicent.

"And try to get her out of this--this brooding and seeing things threatening her everywhere. Laugh it off with her; for God's sake, get her to laugh something off. I've done my best and I've just given up. You take her over now, will you? Cheer her up."

"You aren't going now, are you?" asked Melicent.

"Why, I've just come. No; I'm settling."

Melicent went up to her employer who was sitting staring at nothing. "What has my brother just said to you?"

Melicent told her a part of it, and there was silence again, in which Melicent could hear Everitt Cornwall whistling.

He had returned upstairs to his suite, which was across the hall from his sister's.

The whistling continued and then was muffled by the splash of water. Evidently he was running a bath.

Suddenly the whistling stopped in the middle of a tune, but the noise of the running water continued. It kept on and on.

"He must have his tub filled," Miss Cornwall said after a long time. The water kept running from wide open faucets.

"There is no sense in that!" Miss Cornwall insisted. She rose, opened her door, crossed to her brother's, and knocked.

There was no answer and she called "Everitt! Everitt!"

Still no answer and no sound but the continuous rush of the water. Abruptly the tone of the water changed, and both women knew that it was pouring over on the floor.

Miss Cornwall turned the knob and opened the door. Melicent, behind her, looked in when she did. The bedroom was empty, with some clothes flung on the bed. Miss Cornwall called again and she went to the door of the bathroom adjoining the bedroom.

She rapped loudly and called: "Everitt!"

No answer. She tried the knob and turned it; but the bolt on the other side had been slipped; the door would not open. "Everitt! Everitt!" she shouted again. Melicent joined her calling: "Mr. Cornwall! Mr. Cornwall!" and she beat with her fists on the panels of the door.

"Get a man!" whispered Miss Cornwall to her, as they ceased and faced each other. "'Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes.' Five words again; five words that spell DEATH. He got it to-day. For God's sake, get a man and break down this door!"

CHAPTER III

MELICENT rushed from the bedroom and on the first floor she found the butler, Hardy. "Come with me! Something terrible has happened."

He was a big, heavy man, quite capable of breaking down a door, Melicent appreciated, and she ran back up the stairs, leading him.

They found Hannah Cornwall in her brother's bedroom still beating frantically on the door. "He's in there, Mr. Cornwall. He doesn't answer." Melicent could scarcely pronounce the words.

"One side, miss. Please give me way, Miss Cornwall," begged the butler. He felt the solidity of the door, stepped back, hunched his heavy shoulders, and rushed at it. He made four assaults. The women watched in fixed silence. On the fourth rush the bolt flew off and the man went into the bathroom.

Melicent could not bring herself to follow him, nor could Miss Cornwall. There was no sound but the louder rush and splash of running water and the butler's steps sloshing through the overflow. The faucet was shut off and there was silence.

"Get some one else, miss," said the butler's voice shakily. "Get me another man.

Don't have Miss Cornwall come in."

There was no danger of Miss Cornwall entering. She seemed able scarcely to move at all. Melicent had to half support her as she led her to a chair.

"Have Hardy come here," she managed, then, "I want to know what happened."

The butler came out and bent over her. "Mr. Cornwall is in there." The man's voice was husky. "He's fallen."

"He's dead, you mean," whispered Miss Cornwall. "I know."

"We should have a doctor, ma'am."

"Yes," said Miss Cornwall, rousing. "Get a doctor. Melicent, call Dr. Brook in Williamsborough. Have him hurry--hurry--hurry--"

Her voice failed and trailed off, as though she knew in her heart it was no use.

"Shall I leave you?" asked Melicent.

"Quick! Then come back."

Melicent ran into Miss Cornwall's room and to the phone at which she had overheard the five words of the strange, meaningless message. Dr. Brook's phone number was on a pad beside the instrument. He was in his office and, told of the emergency, he was coming instantly.

Melicent ran back to Miss Cornwall, who was on her feet and had looked in past the broken-down door. "No use; no use," she was saying. "He is dead, but how--how?

How did they kill him--in there? He was alone; the door bolted. We saw how it was bolted. The window--no one could get through the window. He was alone."

"He slipped, ma'am," repeated Hardy. "Looks like he slipped."

"Idiot!" glared Miss Cornwall at the big, slow-witted man, and then she gathered possession of herself. "Of course he slipped, or his heart failed. He was alone; alone!

Melicent, go down and see that no one leaves the house; no one outside leaves the grounds. No one! on any pretext. Go! Hardy, stay here; Melicent, go!"

Melicent ran down to the knot of servants gathered at the foot of the stairs as the alarm had spread. "Mr. Cornwall fell--or fainted," she announced. "Send up Dr. Brook at once when he comes; no one leaves the house."

She went to the door and looked about; far away beyond the lawn she saw Granger's tall figure and she thought for a moment of sending for him, but she did not.

She knew in her heart, as had Miss Cornwall, that more help would be of no use. Instead, she spoke to a maid: "Go out and tell Mr. Granger there has been an accident and see that no one leaves the grounds. Then return to the house."

Melicent herself reascended the stairs and sat beside Miss Cornwall in her brother's room with their backs to the broken-down door.

The doctor came in fifteen minutes. In that time Melicent felt she had lived an eternity and that she had examined her soul as if on the day of judgment. The tragedy, if it was to be a tragedy, had shaken her into an acute consciousness of her situation. By the simple and apparently harmless business of answering an advertisement, she had thrown herself into the midst of an amazing situation. She had become part of a household where every hour the specter of horror was approaching and becoming more visible. Her job as secretary to an eccentric old lady had put her in contact with human motives, the reality of which she had never tried to conceive.

Melicent had had no contact with violent death during her short years. Double tragedy in her own family had fallen into the category of human affairs which men call natural and it had taken place when she was very young. Here was something else. She was surprised to see how cool she could be. She was astonished to find herself wondering if in this dire circumstance she could not be of real assistance. She could still think and her mind told her that, by the very virtue of the fact that she was an outsider, she might make herself invaluable in the days and nights that lay ahead--days and nights that now seemed pregnant with disaster.

The doctor came and she let him in the door, conscious that the curious servants were secretly watching every move now made in the house. She escorted the doctor to Everitt Cornwall's room and waited with Miss Cornwall while the physician made his examination.

It was brief and definite; there was no doubt whatever that Everitt Cornwall was dead and had died suddenly. Dr. Brook made his report briefly and as kindly as possible to Hannah Cornwall.

"He died," asked Miss Cornwall, "Of natural causes?"

"That is impossible yet to say."

"What do you think?"

"I think he died from external causes."

"But he was alone! Absolutely and completely alone. The door was bolted. I was present when it was broken down. No one could have got in the window; there is no other access to the bathroom."

The physician opened his hand and exhibited in the palm a small spider beautifully shaped; it was of copper.

"Do you know anything about that?" he asked.

"Why should I know anything about that?"

"It was in your brother's hand--tightly clasped."

"You mean--he was poisoned by it?"

"No, no," Brook hastily reassured her. "It is metal--copper; and there is no receptacle for poison in it. I have examined it very carefully. It is merely a copper spider which I found clasped in your brother's right hand--but the palm about it was scorched."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, Miss Cornwall, that I think your brother was electrocuted. Above the bath is a lighting fixture which seems to me somewhat defective. The lighting current is not ordinarily powerful enough to kill a person, because usually only a part of the shock is received. When one is standing in water, however, one becomes perfectly 'grounded' if he touches a defective electrical connection. Such condition seemed to exist when your brother was stepping into the bath. As I see it, he had this little copper object in his hand and touched with it the lighting fixture. He got all the shock; he was not young; it instantly killed him."

"But why would he have that spider in his hand when stepping into the bath?"

"I do not know, but I have lived long enough to know that different people carry about with them, and even into a bath, strange amulets and charms. Perhaps this was for him a charm. Where is his valet?"

"Why do you want his valet?"

"He might know about this, Miss Cornwall."

"His valet is not here. My brother left him elsewhere. He knew it is my custom to supply servants for my guests. I do not like outside servants among mine."

"Yes," nodded Brook, "I know that." He turned to Melicent. "Perhaps you might take Miss Cornwall to her own room. You can do nothing more here. Under the circumstances, I must send at once for the coroner, who will undoubtedly want your testimony that Mr. Cornwall, when he died, was in the locked bathroom alone. There will be little other formality, I believe."

In her own room, Hannah Cornwall sat staring. "Not a word of the messages; not a word; not a word!" she half commanded, half begged Melicent. "They can mean nothing; he was in that little room alone--we know he was alone. No one could have harmed him!"

"Yes, Miss Cornwall."

"See that the servants go about their duties as if nothing had happened; they are not to talk. No one is to talk!" Melicent went downstairs, where she now found Granger.

It was not necessary to ask him a question.

"He's dead, I hear."

"Yes."

"Electrocuted?"

"Yes. He must have stood up in the bath tub to turn off the lights and that gave him the shock that killed him."

"It happens. It's terribly dangerous to touch electric lights when you're in a bath tub. You're so well grounded."

She paid no attention to that technical aspect of the death of Everitt Cornwall. Her mind was occupied by too many other matters.

"There was one thing--"

"What do you mean--one thing?" he asked.

"A funny thing."

"Funny?"

Melicent assented with a slow nod. "The doctor found clutched in Everitt Cornwall's hand a copper spider. And the hand that held it was burned."

"A copper spider? What do you mean?"

"Just that. A little metal spider less than an inch long. It looked like a watch charm. The kind they used to wear years ago. Odd. It's all so dreadful--"

There was a warm sympathy in his eyes. "I'm sorry for you, Miss Waring. It's a strange household--" He hesitated. "How is Miss Cornwall taking it?"

"I must return to her," Melicent said.

She went upstairs. Hannah Cornwall unlocked the door of her room and let Melicent enter. The old lady's face was pasty. Her eyes had a frantic, hunted look.

"Lock that door behind you." She spoke now in an excited tone.

Melicent locked the door. Miss Cornwall lay down on the bed and for a long time she made no motion other than a continuous trembling.

Finally she spoke. "What do you think about the copper spider that was in Everitt's hand?"

"I can't think," confessed Melicent.

"Must have been some sort of amulet he wore. But the connection was made by it.

He must have touched the light with it first." The old lady shuddered. Melicent waited for her to continue.

"I've sent for Mr. Reece," Miss Cornwall murmured. "And there will be the coroner, of course."

"What can I do?"

"Just sit here by me--for the present. I'm almost out of my mind. Everitt's death will be a great sorrow to all of us."

Melicent knew that she was not cold-hearted, but only accepting an obvious fact when she considered that Miss Cornwall's shock was due more to fear for herself than to grief over her brother. Grief made people weep, but it did not make them shake and shudder.

When some one knocked on the door Miss Cornwall fairly leaped from the bed.

Her voice broke when she called, "Who is it?"

"Dr. Brook."

"Oh!" There was a welter of relief in the syllable. "Let him in, Miss Waring."

The doctor was brief. "I'm going now. The coroner and the undertaker are here."

"Thank you, Dr. Brook."

"The verdict of the coroner undoubtedly will be that your brother touched the light fixture with the copper spider which he must have been holding in his hand. The voltage and the ground furnished by the water and tub combined to electrocute him. The coroner has examined the room and talked with Hardy and is satisfied as to what happened. However, he must ask you and Miss Waring some merely formal questions."

"Yes," Miss Cornwall whispered.

Brook brought in the coroner, who made his questions as brief as possible. Then he and the doctor were gone and the body of Everitt Cornwall was taken from the house.

For a long time Hannah Cornwall lay on the bed without a word. At last Melicent heard her repeat quietly, "Don't ever alter these horoscopes."

It was mid-afternoon when Miss Cornwall asked her to depart. "I'd like to be alone. And I think--I think I am all right here."

When Melicent reached the hall the front door opened, although there had been neither a ring nor a knock. Simultaneously she saw a man in the doorway and behind him, in the drive outside, a long, low yellow colored roadster. The man saw her at the same time, dropped a heavy suitcase which he was carrying, and exclaimed quickly, "By all my holy ancestors and the holy ancestors of their holy ancestors! Who are you?" At the same time he closed the door.

Closing the door shut out the bright light of day and she could perceive more than a silhouette of the intruder. He was tall and lean and red-headed. He had blue eyes and big hands. But the most unusual feature about him was that he was tanned a dark brown, a condition so uncommon in red-headed people that it startled Melicent. She did not answer at once and he occupied the interlude by grinning. He had a jaw that jutted out above his collar and if his grin had not been so ample one might have thought he was a person of not only great determination but of extreme severity of character.

"Who are you?" he repeated.

Melicent wondered for a moment if this was the Prof. Coleman of whom Miss Cornwall had spoken and then she knew who it was. She knew because the clarity and aspect of his eyes and the roundness of his forehead reminded her vaguely of Everitt Cornwall, and because the chin was the same indomitable chin that distinguished the features of her employer. She did not answer his question. Instead she said, "You're Donald Cornwall."

He gave his head an immense nod. "Excellent. I am Donald Cornwall. Who are you, may I repeat?"

"I am your aunt's secretary."

He came a step closer to her, as if she were a small and distant object requiring close scrutiny. "Have you a name?"

"Yes," Melicent answered. She did not tell him her name, however. His manner was so self-assured, so domineering, that she was instantly piqued by it. He seemed to understand the reason for her refusal to give her name; he bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Auntie--Hey!"

At that moment the new butler came and inquired somewhat awkwardly if the doorbell had been rung. He was apologetic for his failure to appear and reassured when he learned that it was not his fault. He began to carry Donald's luggage upstairs when Miss Cornwall arrived.

She had obviously been agitated by the voices in the hall, but Donald, seeing her at the head of the stairs, hailed her. "Hello, auntie? Just your little Donald popping in.

Tell Hawkins, or Hopkins, or Hastings, or whatever his name is, where to put my duffle."

Miss Cornwall did so, as the butler passed her on the stairs and she joined them in the hall. She took her nephew's hand. "Donald! I--"

He interrupted her: "I drove up from New York. I came in from France last week."

His aunt was leading them all toward the living room downstairs. She spoke from what must have been a confusion of thoughts. "Why didn't you come here immediately?"

"There were some little things I wanted to do first."

"Oh!"

"One was buying an automobile. Down where father and I lived there weren't

"many good roads and they weren't very long. We had an old Ford, that's all. I haven't driven a car since I was at school in France and England, but the one I have outside is a beaut. I suppose it's an extravagance for a poor relation of the Cornwall family, but anyway there it is. By the way, I'd like to have your permission to take Miss Waring out in it any and every night--"

"Donald!"

Miss Cornwall's intonation was one of deep reproach.

"Yes, Aunt Hannah?"

Miss Cornwall looked at Melicent for an instant. "Didn't you tell him?"

She shook her head. "I was just going to when you came down."

"Tell me what?" Donald Cornwall had caught the note in the voices of the two women.

"Your Uncle Everitt arrived here at noon to-day," she said. "He went upstairs to take a bath just now and he was electrocuted when he reached up to turn off the lights."

"What!" Melicent watched the young man closely. Every vestige of his glib good nature--good nature that had been gruesome under the circumstances--deserted him. His color fled. The tan on his face became a sallow and unhealthy shade.

"Your uncle is dead." Donald Cornwall came closer to his aunt. "Did you get my letter?"

She frowned at him in caution. He glanced at Melicent and then took Miss Cornwall's ann. "Come upstairs with me, auntie, and tell me about it."

Melicent did not see Donald Cornwall until much later in the day. She waited in an agony of apprehension for some one to send for her, but apparently Miss Cornwall and her nephew had forgotten that she was in the house.

She did not know just what time it was when Mr. Reece arrived. He drove up in a huge car that skidded to a stop at the door and she answered his ring before Hardy could come from the kitchen.

Mr. Reece was calm. He spoke quietly to her and told Hardy when he appeared to inform Miss Cornwall of his arrival. Meanwhile he talked to Melicent.

"When did it happen?"

"After noon."

"And how?"

"I don't understand it exactly," she said. "But he was taking a bath. He reached up to turn out the lights and got a shock which killed him."

"I see."

"He apparently had some sort of an ornament in his hand because they found him still clutching it--and it had burned his fingers."

"What was it?"

"A spider made of copper."

She could see that this small, gruesome detail shocked him as it had her. But his only voluntary response was a nod. "You're all right, Miss Waring?"

"Yes. "

"Granger's about, I suppose?"

"Yes. In the garage, I think."

"I'll see him later." He paused. "I had an expectation that you would be subjected to this sort of—ah--accident, Miss Waring. Forty years and nothing happened. Forty years--and now--I'm very sorry. But one thing I'd intended to tell you was that if the eccentricities of the Cornwall family ever become hard to bear, you may have confidence in Granger. I--" She had a momentary impression that he was going to add something to those words, but he did not say the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

Instead, she could see him making the mental gesture of compromise. "What I mean is that I have investigated everyone in Miss Cornwall's employment and the facts I have found about Granger are especially to his credit."

"I see." Melicent remembered the arrival of Donald Cornwall. "Did you know that Miss Cornwall's nephew had arrived since the accident?"

"No! Which nephew?"

"Donald. "

"That's Daniel's son. When did he come?"

"Right after--right after--"

"I see."

Melicent thought a moment. "He's with his aunt now."

Mr. Reece nodded vacantly and went upstairs.

Much later Donald Cornwall descended and found her. He was grave and polite.

"I'm sorry about my rude entrance this afternoon. I had no idea--"

"It's all right."

"I was wondering if you'd care to come and have a little something to eat. I know the state your emotions must be in, but you'd be better if you ate something--"

"Well--"

He took her arm and led her toward the dining room. "Uncle Everitt never had a real home. He preferred to rough it all his life. He liked to live on ships and in hotels. I have talked to my aunt and his funeral will be at this house. I am trying to persuade my aunt to go away afterward and I think she may do so. If she did, you wouldn't have any objections to accompanying her, would you?"

Melicent had not thought of that. She realized that she would be glad to leave the shadows of Blackcroft. She wondered if Donald Cornwall would also accompany his aunt. She said, "No. One of the conditions required to fill this position was that the person should have no ties and I have none."

"I see." He drew out a chair at the dining room table and sat down beside her.

Food was brought to them and each one made an effort to eat, an effort wholly for the benefit of the other.

The first part of the meal was spent in complete silence, but eventually Donald Cornwall began to talk in a random manner about his family.

"I suppose I could say that Uncle Everitt was my favorite in the family. Father had two brothers and three sisters. I don't imagine you have met any of them."

Melicent shook her head. "No."

"Theodore is the other uncle and besides Hannah there are Alice and Lydia. Alice lives in Belgium. She has three children--cousins of mine--whom I haven't seen for years and years. They're all pretty gay, I guess. Alice's crazy about them and she spoiled them.

Then here's Lydia. She was a snobbish little chit in the 70s and 80s, or whenever she was a chit. She made grandfather Silas thoroughly peeved by marrying Grand Duke Vladamir Strong of Bortvia. Lydia was a born title-seeker and Silas was a democrat of the first water, so auntie went abroad to live and has stayed there pretty much of the time. I guess things have been tough in Bortvia since it became a republic, and Lydia and her husband and the prince regent are all living in exile in Egypt. That's everybody but Theodore.

Uncle Theodore is a crank. He's a vegetarian and about every two years he makes a big announcement of what he'll do with grandfather's money if he inherits it. His last idea was to build an endowed highway clear across the United States bearing the family name, and free to all people. No toll bridges and no grade crossings."

Donald Cornwall stopped and looked at Melicent, who was silent. Then he continued to talk. "All of them had ideas for disposing of that money. Aunt Hannah wants to start a Greek university, with everybody wearing togas, I think. Poor old dad had the only really sound plan of the bunch. He was interested in medicine and wanted to start a foundation to study tropical diseases. That's why we were in Dutch Guiana. But dad's gone and now Uncle Everitt's gone. Well, they're getting old and I suppose everybody gets old eventually." He put down his knife and fork as if he had given up all pretense of eating. "Funny, that electric light thing. Fairly common accident."

"I am terribly sorry," Melicent said quietly.

His answer came after an interval and it did not seem connected with what she said. He spoke speculatively. "The thing that puzzles me is that it must have been an accident. A pure accident. You could see how it all happened. He reached up to turn on the bracket light and touched the empty socket instead. I can't understand it."

To that Melicent made no reply. She knew what he could not understand. The young man from South America had been thinking his uncle was the victim of a murder.

And now that train of thought was upset because it was obvious that Everitt Cornwall had died by mischance.

People moved through the house upstairs. Servants, one or two officials from the small town of Williamsborough, and the coroner. After they left the dining room Donald joined the people on the floor above and Melicent was again left to the empty rooms and the silence. She had spent a day and a half and one night in the house, but already it seemed to her that she had lived through a month of empty and inactive silence. She dreaded the hour of bedtime.

Its approach was remorseless. Miss Cornwall descended the staircase and looked into the library. Her face was strained but her voice was firm. "We will retire now, Miss Waring."

Melicent followed the old lady up the stairs. No words passed between them and they carried out the ritual on which they had agreed. Miss Cornwall went into her room and locked the door. Melicent went into hers. She undressed and put on the long nightgown and lace cap. She waited and presently there was a knock on the door. They exchanged rooms. No word was spoken. The door was locked. Melicent moved through the dark to the great canopied bed.

When she lay down she realized that she was exhausted from the strain of that long and fantastic day. In the morning she had read the letter which voiced Donald Cornwall's suspicions. At noon Everitt Cornwall had arrived. Later in the afternoon his nephew had appeared and the lemon-colored roadster. Now Everitt Cornwall lay dead and his nephew was secretly mystified because the death was the result of accident and not of murder.

Those thoughts were merely fragments in her mind because superimposed upon them was a repetition of the terror of the night before. It crept through the dark like a cold, invisible mist. It penetrated corners of her mind with imagined episodes, in which she, lying in the antique bed, was mistaken for Miss Cornwall by somebody or the something which was, perhaps even at that moment, moving through the house carrying doom for three more venerable members of the family. She could even imagine that stalking thing was chuckling because one Cornwall had been eliminated by fate.

Lying in the dark, she heard the shuffling steps of officials come to confirm the fact that the death of Everitt Cornwall was accidental. Through the casement windows came the slam of doors and the hum of motors. Voices died. People ceased to walk through the house. Silence descended. She listened. The clock downstairs repeated its dull strikes at intervals, which seemed infinite. It was eleven o'clock, eleven-thirty, twelve, half-past twelve, one. Not a sound in the house. No one outside. Nothing but her fear, her tense waiting. She wondered if Hannah Cornwall was awake in the next room--

awake and trembling. She wondered if Donald Cornwall was also awake and what he was thinking. His presence in the house lent her a mysterious reassurance, the reassurance always given to a woman who knows that her outcry will summon a man. She had thought that she would be able to sleep better because of his presence, but sleep was almost impossible to her.

At two o'clock she was dozing. At three she was awake again and heard the clock strike. Then, when the hours were their blackest, there descended over the whole house not restfulness but numbness. Melicent lay with her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell unevenly. The first dim ray of dawn came through the casement windows like the spreading of a slow stain. It made the bed and the girl dimly visible through the narrowly opened windows and across the floor, in a slow meandering stream, it dispersed and reformed. It rose higher in the room and touched the girl's face. At once she stirred. A second eddy of it, misty and unsubstantial, blew over her.

She opened her eyes. She drew in a sharp breath. It was smoke. Instantly she was on her feet. She ran toward the door that led to the hall. The aura of smoke was not there.

It was not near the door which led into her own bedroom, where Miss Cornwall was asleep. Again she crossed the room. It was coming through the casement windows. Her eyes tried to pierce the grayness outside, but she could see no sign of fire. She listened.

Finally she believed she could detect a crackling sound.

There was a fire somewhere in the house. Melicent shuddered at the realization of a new terror so swiftly come upon Blackcroft, but she acted quickly and definitely. She stuffed the lace nightcap under the sheets. Instinctively, with both hands, she pushed back her disheveled hair. Then she stepped to the door that led to Miss Cornwall's room. She knocked lightly. She heard a creak in response, then footfalls. The door was unlocked and opened slightly. A chain prevented the aperture from widening.

"Who is it?" Miss Cornwall whispered.

"Me--Miss Waring. I smell smoke. There's a fire somewhere."

"Wait." The chain was unlocked. The door swung back. Miss Cornwall stood in the murky light. She was dressed exactly as Melicent had been and in her hand was a revolver. Melicent's mind cataloged both the chain on the door and the gun as further precautions taken by the old lady. For the moment she ignored them. "Smoke," she repeated. "Wood smoke, I think. It came through my windows."

Miss Cornwall made no explanations or apologies. She stepped into the other room. She sniffed. The alarm on her face increased. Melicent realized that in spite of her fear she was endeavoring to think and presently she put her thoughts in fragmentary words. "There's a fire somewhere, all right. You put on a bathrobe, lock me in my room here, and go out from your room. Find out what's burning and come back and tell me."

Hastily Melicent obeyed. She guessed why Miss Cornwall would not go out to look for the source of the smoke--the smoke might be a trick to get her into the hall.

"Maybe I'd better take your revolver."

In the old lady's eyes was an expression that showed she knew why Melicent wished to take that precaution. She considered for a fraction of a second. "There's another one in the bureau drawer yonder. Take that."

Melicent put on a bathrobe, procured the other gun, shut the door between her room and Miss Cornwall's, and then stepped into the dim hall. The smell of smoke was a little stronger. Melicent went at once to its source, although afterward she was never sure how she knew where to go. Over the carpet, almost running, she made her way to the door of the room in which Everitt Cornwall had died. At the door she hesitated and shuddered. She held the gun in her right hand and turned the knob with her left. The smoke inside was not as thick as she had expected. She trembled as she stepped across the threshold. There was no need for further doubt. From the bathroom came a furious crackling. Melicent rushed across the room, threw open the bathroom door for a second, and then closed it. The inside of that room was in flames. The windows were wide open and smoke poured from them. In the interval in which the door had been open heat had beat against her.

She ran from the bathroom. She had not cried out an alarm and still she did not.

The fire seemed localized and was not spreading rapidly; and if, as Miss Cornwall thought, the fire had been set, an alarm and confusion would be what they who set the fire undoubtedly wanted.

In the hall, Melicent stopped and spun about with a sudden, eerie feeling that, aside from the fire, things were not as they had been. Then she realized what had stopped her. The room next to the burning bathroom was one which had been locked and long unused. Melicent remembered that subconsciously. Now, however, the door stood open.

Inside was the dancing light of flame.

Melicent looked into that room. Flame was licking along the wall from the corner.

The smoke it made poured through open windows. She had an impression of dust and disuse, of cobwebs and time-stained slip covers on bulgy furniture. But in the lurid light, she saw two things. The dust on the floor at the wall next to the bathroom was tracked by feet and marked as if some one had knelt there; and on the wall itself was a great, jagged hole in the plaster. The hole was white and new and the material knocked down when the hole was made lay scattered on the floor. Even while she looked, the flames began to lick the edge of the orifice.

The hole, which did not go completely through the wall--for she was sure there was no hole on the opposite side in the bathroom--was about at the height of the top of the bath tub and directly opposite the position of the tub on the other side of the wall.

How Everitt Cornwall could have been killed through this hole which did not itself pierce the wall, she could not think. That was no instant for thought; but that it had something to do with his death, she was suddenly sure. He had been killed ! Murdered!

The five words of a meaningless message which had spelled death was no chance.

Again it had come as a warning just before--murder! For murder had been here! How?

She would never know if she fled the flames now; no one would ever know; for the flames would destroy everything. That was the meaning of the flames; that was the purpose of the fire--to make away with telltale traces.

Was there more here to see; in that corner of the room where the smoke clouded and the flame lent no light; what was there? She ought to see; before everything was forever obliterated she ought to see.

She crept toward the corner; and terror suddenly seized her. Some one was behind her; a man quietly had come into the room.

CHAPTER IV

MELICENT whirled and faced him: the flare of the flames gave light to see his figure but the smoke veiled his features. He was big and powerful; he had a pistol in one hand.

She had the pistol which Miss Cornwall had given her and she held it raised and pointed at him. Suppose he fired--the thought flew through her mind--she could pull the trigger and shoot him, too, before she fell, before his bullet could complete its effect by death.

Her heart was hammering, but she held her hand steady.

"Hello!" she heard. "Hello, how did you get here?"

It was Donald Cornwall's voice; his hand was down and hers with the pistol dropped at her side.

"How did you?"

"Smelt the smoke," said Donald Cornwall. "How long you been here?"

"Just now."

"Why were you staying in here?"

Why had she been staying in a burning room without raising an alarm? A natural enough question. From no one yet had there been an outcry; if she had made none, neither had he, and she knew that his reasons must resemble her own. Before calling about them clamor and confusion he meant to investigate this strange fire.

"Did you see anyone else?" he asked her, stepping close to her. He had a dressing gown over his pajamas, and he stared at her in the flare of the flame.

"Nobody," she said.

"Hear anything?"

"No, but there's a hole in the wall--there!"

"Where?"

"There!"

There where the flames burned yellow and red. He could not see it; she could not see it herself, now, but she knew it was there. "It went through the plaster, right there!

Opposite the bath tub on the other side."

"What was it?"

"Just a hole."

"What else did you see?"

"Nothing."

They were breathing smoke and were half-blinded by it, and it was useless to remain. He caught her wrist and drew her out of the room. Still neither of them shouted an alarm. Something more than flames stirred in the old house that night, something more to be feared than fire.

"Where's my aunt?"

"In her room. She smelt the smoke. She locked the door after me."

"You better get her out. I'll rouse the others."

"All right."

The pressure on her wrist went tighter. Then he let her go and strode down the hall. Melicent rapped on Miss Cornwall's door.

"Who is it?" came the challenge.

"Melicent Waring."

"Anyone with you now?"

"No one!'

Miss Cornwall opened the door; Melicent squeezed in, and the door was instantly secured behind her.

"Who was that with you?"

"Your nephew."

"You woke him up?"

"No; he found me--in the room beyond your brother's bathroom."

"Why were you there?"

"That's where the fire is--and in the bathroom."

"Where my brother died?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. How bad's the fire?"

"I came back to help you out of the house."

"What's Donald doing?"

"He's getting the servants up."

Miss Cornwall somewhat regained composure and concealed her revolver in her nightdress. "I've called the fire department in Williamsborough. It is a volunteer department, so it may take some time, but then a fire spreads slowly at first. There are fire extinguishers in the linen closet and in the pantries downstairs, tell Donald."

"You want me to leave you?"

"I will know when I should abandon the house."

Nothing at the moment could be gained by telling Miss Cornwall of the strange hole in the wall which the flames had hid; it would only increase her fright which was so great that fear of the fire for itself seemed scarcely to disturb her at all.

Melicent went out and in the hall met Donald Cornwall leading Hardy and some of the other servants with fire extinguishers and pails. They stood in the hall and slung water and squirted chemicals at the burning walls. Granger ran up with more extinguishers which he had brought from the garage, but they were of no use. They smothered the surface flame but the fire was inside the walls and also broke out below.

Smoke came up the stairs.

"This house," said Donald Cornwall, "is going to go. Maybe we've got five minutes."

Melicent was admitted again to Miss Cornwall's room. She found her employer filling a huge suitcase which was in the middle of the floor. Miss Cornwall was dressed and there was a tin box at her feet. She looked up momentarily. "I have expected something like this for years and thank God some one woke up when it happened. Get your things together, Miss Waring."

Melicent opened the door to her room but she was unable to enter--smoke puffed out at her. She slammed the door.

She realized that she was still dressed in Miss Cornwall's night clothes, although she had discarded the cap. Miss Cornwall stopped packing and thought for a moment.

"I'll lend you something." She rummaged in one of the closets and held out to Melicent a long, black skirt and sweater.

"That plaster is hot," observed Miss Cornwall. "The fire got into your room between the walls." She stooped for an instant to close the huge suitcase. "Help me with this and we will leave."

Melicent pulled on the clothes and she helped tug the big suitcase to the door which Miss Cornwall unlocked. Donald Cornwall and Granger were still fighting the fire but the servants had disappeared. Donald seized his aunt's arm but she refused to escape until he picked up her tin box; then he hurried her down the stairs.

Granger grabbed the big suitcase, and Melicent, holding her breath, ran down before him and they gained the outside air together. Somewhere in the house was the sound of falling timbers and the gray dawn was illuminated by a flickering yellow light.

From the lawn it was easy to see that the house was doomed--the flames, eating up between the walls, reached the roof and blazed through and the wind blew drafts which sucked the fire through the vitals of the old mansion. Donald Cornwall and Granger had run back into the house but the servants stayed outside and gathered in a staring, whispering half-circle behind their employer.

The flaming roof threw a garish glow and Miss Cornwall made a brief survey of her house in the light from its own destruction. Then she turned her back to it and called Hardy to order him to check up on the servants. Everyone was out and Donald and Granger at last reappeared, stumbling through the great front door. They lay down on the grass, gasping for air.

Melicent bent over them. They were all right, they said. They just needed breath.

Melicent returned to Miss Cornwall, who had faced about again to the fire. She sat on her suitcase and hugged her knees. She trembled but one could not be sure whether it was from fear or from the frigidity of the early morning.

Melicent could not be sure why she herself was shaking. The ground under her feet and the air were cold. The flames gave a little heat as they added to the slowly increasing light of day. A siren heralded the approach of the fire apparatus, but it was obvious that the firemen were not in time to save the house. However, they ran their hose and pumped their streams of water on the blaze which now leaped from all the length of the roof and spread a crimson glare to the sky.

A floor fell, scattering flaming embers, the brick walls became sides of a furious furnace so hot that Miss Cornwall and her tin box and huge suitcase were moved farther away. What had been an early morning breeze became a wind. Shrubbery on the lawn and the tops of trees caught fire. The men who had come from the village had to satisfy themselves with a triumph over these fires and with drenching the garage so no ember could set it ablaze. However, Granger drove out the Rolls-Royce and two other cars.

He had helped the firemen for a while and so had Hardy and Donald Cornwall, and now, with the shrubbery wet down, there was nothing for anyone to do but watch.

Donald Cornwall went to the fire engine and found two blankets and laid one about his aunt. With the other he approached Melicent.

"It's all I can rustle for you. Are you all right?"

"Perfectly."

"Shaking a bit," he observed.

"Am I? I'm not cold."

His face was grimy and the grime almost camouflaged a grin that held more praise than humor. "Don't dream that I grudge you a shiver or two. Do you know, I thought you were never coming out. Did you save anything of your own?"

"Do I look as if I did? returned Melicent, quieted now of her quivering. "Too bad.

I guess my aunt and the insurance company will make amends for that."

It was the first moment in which Melicent had thought of the fate of her personal belongings. The fervor with which Miss Cornwall had packed the big suitcase and clung to the tin box had so impressed Melicent that she had forgotten her own in helping save the old lady's personal belongings. What were her dresses and hats and underthings compared to the putative contents of that tin box?

Abruptly she recollected that over the nightdress belonging to Miss Cornwall she was wearing a borrowed sweater and skirt, and that everything she had possessed--except the bedroom slippers on her feet--had been consumed in the crackling, thundering caldron before them.

Miss Cornwall approached her. "Granger has the car ready. I think we had better go to town. There is quite a nice little hotel there. I am sorry about all this."

Melicent looked at the face of Hannah Cornwall, ruddy in the crimson glare. She wondered if Miss Cornwall was sorry. There was no tone of regret in the voice that said the words and perhaps they carried a trace of relief. Now that gloomy old Blackcroft had been consumed before her eyes, now that it had been blotted from the earth, was the old lady finding herself almost glad that it was gone?

This home had been for her a dwelling place of dread, in recent days at least, and in it yesterday her brother had been murdered.

Did she realize that it was murder which had come to her brother with the little copper spider clenched in his hand?

She stumbled as she strode toward the car and Melicent caught her on one side, Donald Cornwall on the other. They helped her into the car and packed in her big suitcase and her precious tin box in front of her.

Melicent stepped away then in the direction of the burning house and Donald followed her.

"There's not a chance of saving anything now," he said.

"Of course not. I was just thinking."

"What?"

"About what I saw in there; about what I told you. There was a hole in the plaster in that room just opposite the tub in the bathroom."

"But there was no hole through into the bathroom," said Donald Cornwall.

"No, nothing that we noticed, but--do you know about the message he received before he went to bathe?"

"He got a message?" asked Donald quickly. "What sort of a message?"

"Then your aunt didn't mention it to you."

"No, she didn't mention any message. What sort was it?"

"A five word message--meaningless to him."

"What were the words--meaningless or not?" He had seized her wrist again, almost as he had in the burning room, but this time it was to hold her until she told him.

"It was a telegram from New York which was phoned over to him. It had no meaning to him, he said. He thought it could not be for him but it was addressed to him, care of his sister."

"What were the five words of the message?"

"'Don't ever alter these horoscopes,'" repeated Melicent slowly. She could hear him whispering the initial letters after her and his fingers clamped on her wrist mercilessly.

"Miss Waring!" commanded Miss Cornwall from the car. "Come! Miss Waring!"

"Go with her!" bade Donald, and dropped her hand.

"It seems sure your uncle was murdered."

"Of course he was, so stay with her. Don't you see how she's twice as much more in danger? Leave everything else to me."

"Come, come! Miss Waring!"

Melicent climbed into the car. She had one last glimpse of the old mansion. The iron railing that ran around the top had been broken in two and part of it sagged into the flames. It was red hot--almost the same color as the autumn sun which was rising behind it. Granger drove smoothly and swiftly but when the limousine reached the post road Donald Cornwall's yellow roadster passed them and they found, upon reaching the Williamsborough inn, that Donald had awakened the proprietor and already had arranged accommodations for them. What other business he had in town Melicent did not learn, for he had not awaited them.

She went with Miss Cornwall to the room reserved, where Hannah locked herself in. At eight o'clock a girl from one of the local stores was sent to Melicent's room, talked with her briefly and less than an hour later returned with some clothing which, while not what Melicent herself would have selected, was far better than a costume of a long, dark skirt, an ill-fitting sweater and bedroom slippers.

She wondered as she dressed, when she was left again alone, whether she would continue to hold her job. Miss Cornwall had said nothing about it, but certainly it would not be strange if Hannah Cornwall, accustomed to change all her employees periodically, made another shift after what had happened. As she thought of this possibility, Melicent learned how much she wanted to remain in the strange old lady's employ and close to the amazing secrets of this family. She was in a situation utterly incomparable with anything in her life before, and she could not relinquish it. She tried to think what Miss Cornwall had last said to her, but she could not remember that the old lady had said a word from the time they left Blackcroft until the time she locked herself in her hotel room.

Donald Cornwall, Melicent was sure, had ordered that she be supplied with the clothes, though they were to be charged to Miss Cornwall.

It was a bright, warm forenoon, with cars passing, people walking by, voices and bells. The business of the day was begun, and Melicent Waring's business (she was very sure) was to see that the authorities understood that murder had been done somehow in that bathroom at Blackcroft where Everitt Cornwall had died with the little copper spider clutched in his hand.

She listened at Miss Cornwall's door and hearing nothing Melicent went downstairs, her mind full of determination, her nerves aching from the intensity of the last twenty-four hours. In complete contrast to herself, she found Donald Cornwall sitting alone at a table in the dining room calmly drinking coffee. He had on fresh clothing, and with the grime of last night weariness also seemed to have gone from him. He rose as he saw her. "How do you feel?"

"I'm all right. Thanks for sending the girl from the store."

"She did very well by you. How's my aunt?"

"Sleeping, I think."

"I might make sure of that. But first, will you have some coffee?"

"I'd love some."

He beckoned to the waitress hovering near. "Coffee and fruit--and whatever else Miss Waring wants, here," he ordered, and he pulled back a chair for Melicent, and himself departed.

Before the coffee came, however, he was back and opposite Melicent at the little, cozy table.

"Was she asleep?" asked Melicent.

"No, just resting. She's quite a woman, isn't she? She gets waked up in the middle of the night, finds her house is on fire, takes out the things she values most, and accepts the whole thing as calmly as you please. When I saw her just now, she was sitting on her bed checking over her insurance policies. She'd already made her mind up about everything "

"About everything?"

Young Cornwall nodded. "About you, for example, and even me. I personally think she was glad to get rid of Brackcroft. She never voluntarily would have moved out.

Nobody could have budged her, but now that it's gone, it bucked her up. She's decided to do something."

"What?"

"Go abroad. Her sister Alice lives in Belgium, has a big house in the Domrey river valley. They haven't seen each other for years. Aunt Hannah has decided to go there and wants to take you and Granger and the car and she wants me to go along. Sort of family pilgrimage."

"She wants to take me to Belgium?"

He nodded. "Yep. She has a high opinion of you. Says you have plenty of nerve and intelligence."

"It's nice of her--"

"I am supposed to make the proposition and tell her the answer, so what do you say?"

"You Cornwalls are a very strange people," said Melicent. She looked about. Her coffee and fruit had been brought her and the waitress had gone away. They were alone in the breakfast room of the inn, yet Melicent leaned nearer him across the table and whispered, "Did you understand what I told you last night?"

"About the hole in the plaster," he replied without a change in his expression,

"and about the message, too. In fact, I checked over the message with the telegraph company this morning. It was as you repeated it to me."

"And it meant nothing to you?"

"Of course it means something to me--and so does the hole in the plaster; so much that I want to be sure that my aunt goes away, leaves the country at once. I'm sure she will, if you go with her. She is more shaken than she seems, but she feels she can depend on you, and she likes Granger, too. So will you go?"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going abroad too. We will have services here for Uncle Everitt, of course.

Meanwhile I'll have time to see to some obvious duties." His voice dropped but his expression did not at all change, and anyone looking in would think him conversing only casually. "I'm having the death of Uncle Everitt investigated fully--and privately. So tell no one else what you told me. You see why, surely. We must throw them off guard--they who thought up the copper spider. We must make it appear that we accept what happened as an accident--he was electrocuted touching a defective fixture. Any hope we have of catching them depends on that. You see it, surely."

"Yes," agreed Melicent. "I see."

The waitress was returning. "You've been to Belgium?" Donald inquired of Melicent easily.

"Never."

"You'll like it . . ." his voice ran on pleasantly and unperturbed.

Later, away from him, Melicent felt she had acquiesced too readily. She liked him, he was utterly disarming of doubts when he was with her, and she knew from having seen the letter he had written following the death of his father that he must be thoroughly convinced now that the messages meant murder and that murder had been done.

The burning of the house following the sudden death of Everitt Cornwall had made a sensation, of course, but Melicent found that it had aroused no suspicion in the little town. The same explanation sufficed for both events. The wiring in the old mansion had become very defective, so that a fixture had killed Everitt Cornwall when he touched it stepping into the bath; another defect in the same wiring had made a short circuit during the night and set fire to the house. The second circumstance seemed to confirm the original explanation of the first.

Shortly before noon Mr. Reece arrived and was received by Miss Cornwall alone.

They had a long conference, and when the lawyer came out from it Donald Cornwall claimed him.

This conference was shorter, but it was after luncheon when Melicent found her first opportunity for a private word with the lawyer, who originally had engaged her.

"You have behaved admirably," Mr. Reece praised her. "Miss Cornwall and her nephew agree that no one could have acted better. I am very glad that you will accompany my client to Belgium. That there are personal risks involved in this employment, which scarcely were contemplated when I first talked to you must be clear to you." He went on in a way which suggested to Melicent that he had rehearsed what he had to say. "The nature of those risks should be as clear to you as to me."

"Perhaps," put in Melicent, "they are clearer."

"What do you mean?"

"Did Mr. Cornwall tell you that we believe--I mean, he and I--that his uncle was murdered?"

Reece nodded. "And he has related to me the reasons for that belief--also that you have very sensibly concluded that these must be kept secret for the present."

"That is the chief thing, Mr. Reece, which disturbs me."

"Dismiss your disturbance. You would only bring to nothing the investigations which I am conducting here. For forty years--for forty years," Reece repeated impressively, "I or the firm which I now represent have handled the affairs of this family.

I must be the one to judge the best interests of all concerned. Is there anything I can do for you before you leave for Belgium?"

For a moment Melicent found herself flung from the maze of the Cornwall affairs.

She was returned in mind to her room with Helen Crosby which had been her home when she had been only a girl out of a job.

"I have agreed to devote myself exclusively to Miss Cornwall but I would like before I go away to send word to my old roommate that I am going abroad for an indefinite stay and that I am fascinated by my work."

Mr. Reece permitted himself a smile. "Certainly, you may send that."

Later in the afternoon arrived a smug, sententious and oversolicitous scholar, upwards of fifty in years. This was Prof. Coleman, who, if Hannah Cornwall survived all her sisters and brothers, would surely obtain many of the family millions for his university to be established after the ancient Greek ideals. At five o'clock Theodore Cornwall, now the sole surviving brother, appeared at the inn.

In contrast to Everitt, he traveled with a corps of attendants. He brought valet, secretary, masseur, and two burly individuals who badly disguised the fact that they were bodyguards. He contrasted with his late brother in many other ways. There was no geniality about him.

He was a tall, thin, querulous man, absorbed with himself and possessed of enormous vanity. He was the brother, Melicent recollected, who had become a vegetarian when a young man in the hope of prolonging his years and who had become so confident of outliving his brothers and sisters that he announced now and then some new grandiose scheme which would be carried out when he obtained the family money.

He was with his sister when the news came that the coroner had completed his investigation of the circumstances of Everitt Cornwall's death and had given the verdict that it was due to accidental causes.

Melicent met Granger in the lounge of the inn.

"You're going to Belgium with our employer, I hear," he observed.

"Aren't you, too?"

He nodded. "What's the real word on what happened in that bath?" he asked her, jealously. "You know, but I--well, they ask me to come along but they don't tell me anything. What do you think of that accident?"

"What do you'" returned Melicent, evading him although she was glad he was going to Belgium too.

Outside, Donald Cornwall awaited her. "Uncle Theodore has been inviting Aunt Hannah to visit him in New York," Donald told her. "But she's not likely to change her plan now--for heaven's sake don't let her."

Melicent stood at the rail of the fastest and finest liner in the Atlantic service. She had never been on an ocean liner before in her life. On one side of her a lifeboat hung in its davits. On the other side a long row of people lined the same rail, dividing their attention between the waving, shouting crowd on the pier and the towering skyline which rose in the background. A tugboat pushed the mushroom on its nose against the side of the liner, a deep whistle shook her body. Handkerchiefs broke over the crowd on the dock like small white flowers. She had a vague sense of motion and water appeared between the side of the vessel and the dock. The great whistle sounded and was answered by lesser whistles.

She noticed one of the passengers, a middle-aged man with a waxed mustache, looking at her and it gave her a momentary feeling of satisfaction. A barber at the Ritz had arranged the coiffure of her golden-brown hair. The traveling suit which she wore was not a cheap copy of a Paris model--it was a Paris model. Miss Cornwall had insisted that Melicent's smart but meager wardrobe which had been destroyed in the fire should be replaced at her own expense. She had furthermore, rejected Melicent's suggestions of stores at which to shop and had taken her to a couturier with the result that Melicent's new wardrobe was not only extravagant and complete but a suitable compliment to a girl whose beauty and poise merited such careful attention.

The man with the waxed mustache looked away from her and Melicent forgot about him. She even laughed soundlessly at herself for allowing herself the vanity of being pleased by his obvious admiration. The water between the ship and the shore was now half as wide as the river. The crowd and the waving handkerchiefs had melted into a single spot of color on the wharf. By turning her head in a semicircle she could perceive the entire extent of Manhattan Island. She looked at it wistfully. It had been her home for a long time and although it had sometimes been hard to live there she had always found it exciting and she had always felt safe inside its roaring, impersonal boundaries.

Now she was embarked on a strange journey to a country she had never seen, with people she scarcely knew. Her thoughts went that far and then she questioned them. She scarcely knew them and yet the things she knew about those people would have caused ninety-nine people out of a hundred to discontinue any association with them. She knew that her employer lived hour by hour and day by day under the threat of violent death.

She knew that the brother of her employer had been murdered in the house where she had lived for two days. She knew that the house had been burned down to obliterate the traces of that murder.

Her knowledge went further. There were three Cornwall sisters still alive and one Cornwall brother and of those four people it was conceivable to Melicent that some or all of them were scheduled to die.

Her eyes turned inward and she no longer looked at the skyline which passed in review before her. Strange people whom she scarcely knew? Involuntarily she shook her head. Already in these few days she knew them better than anyone she had ever known before; or at least she had become more intimately involved in their affairs, in their fears, and in their fates.

A breeze was blowing, a clean, clear wind from the sea; invigorating and cool.

Had she let herself become over-affected by the family fears? Had she come under the spell of imaginings of minds dwelling day after day, year after year, decade after decade with one obsession--the obsession of each sister and brother that she or he must outlive all the others. Everitt Cornwall had denied it, but he was the only one that did, and he was dead.

Might his death have been merely accidental after all? She had read of it so plausibly explained in the newspapers. He had come to visit his sister in the old house and, using a room long in disuse, he had touched a defective fixture and been killed and a short circuit in the same defective wiring that night had destroyed the house.

Might not the death of Daniel Cornwall--Donald's father--also have been natural?

Donald himself had written: that the chemist had not been able to prove that his father had been poisoned.

But there were the messages--the five meaningless words: "doubtless even a tulip hopes"--"don't ever alter these horoscopes"--each message a herald of what its initials spelled--death.

She tossed her head and faced into the breeze. Behind her lower New York was vanishing in a haze over the flat surface of Governor's Island. They steamed through the narrows and out into the harbor. Coastlines became low and purple, an orchestra began to play somewhere on the ship. A voice at her side startled her. "How do you like it?"

She turned. "Oh! Hello, Mr. Cornwall."

Donald grinned amiably. There was no hat on his red hair. He wore knickers. He was seemingly enjoying the departure from America. "Couldn't you arrange to call me Don, or something of the sort?"

"Don't you think your aunt would disapprove?"

He shook his head. "I will fix it with her. 'Aunt,' I will say to her, 'it would facilitate conversation in the Cornwall ménage if your secretary had permission to call me by my first name.' Incidentally, what is your first name?"

She told him before she thought. "Melicent."

"Melicent. That's a swell name. Wonderful name. You could only have a few names, anyway. Let's see. You might be Genevieve, but that hasn't quite the right sound.

You might be Guinevere or possibly Cytheria, but Melicent is by far the best, although as far as I am concerned I believe you exhibit an undue amount of formality and cruel frigidity. You couldn't be prevailed upon to call me Don? I don't like Donald. I never did like Donald. It smacks of small boys who obey their mothers. It has a Sunday school sound. But Don is different. It's romantic. For instance, there's Don Juan. Imagine how far he would have gone if his name had been Donald Juan."

Melicent smiled. Then she said ironically, "There was Donald Quixote."

"The gentleman who tilted at windmills--to whom you seem to compare me.

Maybe you're right. I'd like to believe it that all that bothers us is made up in our minds."

He was suddenly serious. "Does it seem that way to you sometimes?"

"Sometimes," said Melicent. "Then let's have it seem so as long as we can. Here I have met the most delightful girl I have ever seen in my life and the auspices are--or were--shockingly depressing. We won't have them so. After lunch there's going to be a tea dance. I'm sure my aunt won't mind if you join me in treading a measure. I don't mean to inflict myself upon you, but we are going to be on sea for five days and if I prove any help to you in passing the time--"

Melicent said "Thank you" and walked slowly along the deck to a companionway and down to her stateroom. She would have enjoyed his banter under most circumstances, but now she could not help feeling that it was out of place. It did not fit her thoughts, it did not belong in the somber fates of the Cornwall family which he was lightly trying to fling off.

Well, if he could fling them off for a while, why shouldn't he? She was sorry for her rudeness--it had been almost that, and she returned to the deck, but he was not to be found and she was sorry. As she thought about him she realized that his chaff often was a mask for something else he had in mind.

Later she encountered Granger, and he asked her to the dance, but she refused him because, having declined Donald, she would not attend with another, and so she lost out altogether and spent much of the afternoon with Miss Cornwall.

She had arranged for herself and Melicent two connecting staterooms, and at bedtime they performed exactly the same charade which they had initiated at Blackcroft.

Melicent went into her room and locked the door; Miss Cornwall was already in her room. At 9:30 they exchanged chambers, but before the operation was complete, Miss Cornwall talked for a little while with her secretary.

"I would like to express my sincere appreciation of the favor you are doing me in accompanying me to Belgium. You are an intelligent girl and you have doubtless perceived the cloud under which all the members of the Cornwall family live. Our father feared death above all other things and perhaps we have inherited some of that fear.

suppose you have heard that he left his fortune to the one of us who will be the last to survive?"

"I have heard something about it," said Melicent.

"To my mind he did it as an incentive to us to take care of the precious years granted to us on this earth. Father never took care of himself until too late, and at fifty he was in ill health. I imagine he designed his will to force us to do what he had not done--to live exemplary lives. It is the pressure of that circumstance which has gradually reduced me to an overcautious behavior." Her dark eyes gazed piercingly at Melicent.

She merely said, "I quite understand, Miss Cornwall."

"I wonder," the old lady murmured. "I wonder if you do." In a moment she proceeded. "There is something which occurred since we got aboard the boat which has disturbed my nephew," she said positively. "He denies it, but I am not easily deceived.

Can you learn from him what it is?"

"Perhaps," said Melicent guardedly. So her instinct had been right. Don Cornwall had approached her with chaff to conceal something else.

The next morning she found him, and on the sky deck they placed two chairs in the lee of a big life boat, and they were alone.

"I was rude yesterday," she said.

"But you weren't!"

"I came back to find you afterwards."

"I wish you'd come into the smoking room."

"I had a funny idea that I'd stopped you telling me something you meant to."

"You did."

"What was it?"

His eyes had been on her, but now he looked away over the sea. "Perhaps it's better left unsaid."

"Why?"

"Probably there's nothing to it. There can't be anything in it, of course, but--"

"Please look at me," said Melicent.

"You haven't got to ask that."

"You've discovered something more about--about the thing that bothers us."

"I wouldn't dignify it with calling it exactly a discovery. You save that word for such things as stumbling upon America when you're looking for China and finding the planet Pluto and so on."

"Well," demanded Melicent, smiling, "what did you do?"

"I noticed something quite interesting about our family names. I mean the given names of my father and of his sisters and brothers--Daniel, Everitt, Alice, Theodore, Hannah, and Lydia. That does not happen to be the order of the family by birth, but they can be arranged in that order. Perhaps they are being arranged in that order."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you make anything out of the names of the first five, taken in that order--

Daniel, Everitt, Alice, Theodore, Hannah?"

Melicent caught her breath. "D E A--" she began.

"Exactly. D was my father Daniel; he's been killed. E was my uncle Everitt, and he has just been murdered. A is my Aunt Alice, and we are on the way to her."

CHAPTER V

MELICENT experienced a moment of helplessness. She had the sensation of being in the grip of something she had no power to combat. Suddenly it was as if a sentence had been passed upon another and she could only stand by and watch it being executed. She turned from Donald Cornwall and stared out over the sea and let the cool wind on her cheek bring back more rational thought.

"You believe that some one has arranged your family in that order?" she asked at last.

"Some one seems to have made a start, certainly." Donald would not let his feeling be blown away. "Some one certainly has killed D and E; I was wondering--that was all--if A might be next. You see," he went on after an instant, "after I first noticed the initials of that message which came to my father, I tried to argue with myself that they meant nothing; but not even you can doubt it now, after a message like it came to Uncle Everitt and he immediately was killed."

"Of course, I don't doubt it."

"Well, I got the same sort of feeling when I noticed how the names could be arranged in order. I tried to tell myself it was purely accidental; it meant nothing; but I couldn't forget it. But perhaps I should have kept it to myself."

"Not from me," Melicent put in quickly. "But I certainly wouldn't mention it to your aunt."

"I've no idea of it."

"How did you happen to notice that possible arrangement of the names? Did anything occur to call your attention to it?"

"No, I was just mulling over what happened--how my father, Daniel, was killed; then Uncle Everitt followed him, and now we are going to Aunt Alice. Then I thought of Theodore and Hannah."

"But Lydia is another name," objected Melicent. "Quite. Aunt Lydia seems to be left out. I was wondering what that might mean."

"So you feel sure that this--it-whatever it is--does mean something?"

He jumped up and, facing her, held out both his hands, seizing hers and pulling her to her feet. "Let's walk. What little hands you have. I like little hands, if they're long. .

. . How many times about the deck makes a mile? Somebody on board always knows.

He'll be English and doing twenty laps, at least. By the way, did I tell you that my Aunt Alice married an Englishman? She's a widow now, but I've cousins . . . you'll meet them.

They're the reason that Aunt Alice wants to outlive the rest of her generation, so she can get all the money and leave it to her children. Quite English. . . . As I said, you'll meet them. . . ."

They began their walk about the deck and soon sighted Granger, who happened to be making the rounds in the opposite direction, and who was alone. They greeted him and passed on.

"You like him?" Donald Cornwall demanded, rather suddenly, of Melicent after they were out of earshot.

"Yes," said Melicent. "I like him."

"So do I," agreed Donald promptly. "Useful he was, I'll say, the night the house burned. Doesn't think first of saving his skin if anything's going on. But--well, lack of curiosity is not one of his sterling qualities."

Melicent smiled. "What would you think of a man knowing as much as he must know of your family affairs," she defended him, "and not being--curious?"

Donald did not reply directly. "How much does he know, do you think? Does he know, for instance, about the messages?"

"I've not told him," said Melicent.

"You won't, of course."

"No. Of course not."

"And that order of the family names I mentioned," Donald went on. "Let's keep that strictly between ourselves."

"Of course."

They did a measured mile about the deck, passing Granger several times. And then Melicent went below to Miss Cornwall, who observed: "You've been walking with my nephew."

"Yes."

"I was right, was I not? Something new has happened which he is keeping from me?"

"Nothing of any importance has happened, I'm sure," Melicent replied, to which Miss Cornwall countered: "Then he hasn't told you. It's getting rougher, isn't it?"

"I believe it is."

"I was afraid so. I am not a good sailor."

Melicent discovered, to her great relief, that she herself was a good sailor, the ship's motion distressed her not at all, although by late afternoon the wind had increased to a blow which raised such a sea that the decks were almost deserted, but Granger was on deck and as soon as he was alone he joined her.

"What's going on?" he challenged her without preliminary, as one saving time.

"What--where?" she returned.

"Where you are, on the inside," he said jealously. "What's he been telling you--

Donald Cornwall?"

He was so frank and emphatic that she liked him and she liked also his blond head and blue eyes so accusing of her.

"He's been telling me," Melicent replied, "about his aunt, to whom we're going, and her family. She's a widow--her husband was English--she has children."

"I know all that," said Granger, impatiently. "Then there's no more family--news."

"No news," assured Melicent honestly. After all, Donald's noticing of a possible peculiar arrangement of the family names was not news. "What news were you expecting?" she demanded of Granger.

"News of the next," said Granger, staring out at sea.

"Next what?"

"Next Cornwall to go."

"You mean you're expecting a next?"

"Aren't you?" rejoined Granger with his characteristic bluntness. "Aren't they all?

Now that it's started, do you suppose it's stopping with Daniel and Everitt when there's four more left?"

"What do you mean by 'it'?"

"Murder," said Granger. "You know it and so do I. That Cornwall will always was a perfect setup--a perfect motivation, if you prefer--for murder. It was only a question of time for some one to get around to it. The wonder is that it waited so long-forty years. . .

I wish you could get it straight in your head that I'm on this job with you, Miss Waring.

I'm playing the game with you all. Do you suppose I think it was an accident that Everitt Cornwall was killed when he stepped into the tub? Do you suppose I swallowed

'defective wiring' for that fire? But I kept still; I played the game. That's why I'm here now. I wanted to stick with you. Do you mind my telling you that ever since I saw you I haven't been able to get you off my mind?"

She flushed. "Why--"

"Never mind. Forget it. I have eyes; I see you with Donald Cornwall. But I haven't always been a pilot and at times a chauffeur--and I won't always be. I'm glad I'm along. Remember, if you ever get into trouble, give me a chance to help you."

"That's terribly kind of you, but I don't expect trouble for myself. Do you?"

"Who can tell," he returned, looking at her again instead of the sea, "what we're walking into?"

The ship docked at Havre and Melicent had her first glimpse of a foreign land.

From the rail, she stared at the unfamiliar shores as if they were enchanted. She tried to discover precisely what made them so strange and was only partially able to do so. No particular thing was very much different from America and yet every single house and tree and street and stone was faintly different. The net result was a complete divergence from the familiar scheme of things.

"Like it?"

She turned to see Donald Cornwall standing beside her.

"Very much."

"I like it, and I'll like land better than ever now."

"But you were never seasick."

"No, neither were you, but you were altogether too much with my aunt in the staterooms. I've missed you. I thought--ah, well. My thoughts are like feathers. They'd rest my head if I had enough of them--but I have only one and the wind can blow that away."

"Which means?"

He laughed. "Nothing. It means nothing. When a member of my generation of the Cornwall family says something that means something, it will be twelve o'clock on doomsday. I've been thinking over the decidedly suggestive arrangement of the family names which I mentioned to you the first day out. Forget it, will you?"

"Gladly," agreed Melicent, "if I could."

"Same here. Well, we'll soon enough know what--if anything--it means. We're driving from here to my Aunt Alice's--we've the Rolls aboard, you know. We ought to arrive to-morrow evening. Wait till you see my cousins. You'll enjoy motoring across northern France."

"Any news?" asked Melicent.

"News? No, no news, except that Aunt Alice has wired that she is delighted that we're arriving and she is ready for us. That's all the news just now."

Melicent did enjoy the ride across northern France. Granger drove at a rapid rate and had no trouble in finding the way. She was astonished to discover that he spoke French. She found her own brand of the language almost useless--certainly two years of school French could not cope with excitable townsmen who interspersed their words with sly compliments.

When they approached the home of Alice Cornwall, however, the respite of five days at sea seemed to Melicent automatically to come to a close. She tried to put out of her mind the idea that here the next Cornwall was to "go" and that the one would be the mistress of the mansion, Alice.

Perhaps Melicent's expectations were vaguely disappointed because the house in Belgium was not a chateau with towers and pointed peaks, with stone walls and dungeons, with a bloodcurdling and yet faintly absurd history. The house on the Domrey River was not far from the French border; it was situated deep in the valley of the river and had been built by a mill-owner who had prospered in the years after Waterloo and it had been expanded by a later owner in the days of Napoleon second. More recent additions had been made by an English proprietor and they were square and ugly. Around it was a conventional garden, but the lateness of the season had destroyed its beauty.

There were no other houses near it, although at a distance of a mile or more, along the slow meandering river, there was a small town which, judging from the pall of smoke that hung above it, was the site of numerous factories.

It was nearly dark when they reached the house and they were welcomed at the door by Alice Cornwall. She was plump and she had bobbed gray hair. Her nose was long and sharp like Hannah Cornwall's nose, but her eyes were bland and almost dull. With her at the door to greet them was a short flabby young man in his middle twenties who spoke with a broad Oxford accent. Alice Cornwall seemed to be delighted to see her sister Hannah and in spite of her years--Melicent thought she must be nearly sixty-five--

she gushed.

"Why, my dear Hannah! This is too good to be true. I am simply delighted to see you. We have lived over here so long that we are veritable natives. I am beginning to think of myself as a Belgian woman. You don't look a day older than when I saw you last. And this is your secretary, Miss Watling--oh, yes-Miss Waring. Pierre will take care of her. I have put her in a room next to yours, just as you asked me to do."

She addressed Donald next. "My dear boy! It's so good of you to bring your aunt, and I am sure you will find relief from the--sorrow you must feel for the loss of your father. Dear Daniel. He was such a gentleman and so devoted to his studies. Even when he was a little boy he used to have a passion for doing things for people. His death is a loss to the whole world. To the tropics, anyway. And Everitt gone, too, and right in your house! Think of it! Only four of us left. Every year I run up to Paris for my clothes and a little whirl and try to forget that I am sixty-three. Isn't it horrid the way time flies? You know Lester, don't you? You remember you used to play together when you were children. Lester, this is Donald."

The young man with the Oxford accent held out his hand to Donald Cornwall.

"Glad to know you."

Melicent caught a glint of amusement in Donald's eyes as he regarded his cousin.

Pierre, who was evidently major domo, spoke quietly to her. "If madamoiselle will follow me to her room--?"

As Melicent walked away with him she heard the continual sound of Alice Cornwall's voice. "Yes, it's been a long time. Nine years. Ever since my poor husband died. But I've been a contented widow, a very contented widow."

The rooms which had been set aside for Melicent and Miss Hannah Cornwall were garishly papered and furnished with too many chairs, too many little tables, too many gilt-edged mirrors, and too many glass pendants. They were a rococo effort to recapture a period of French decoration long since departed. And the small windows opening from them overlooked the turgid water of the Domrey.

In the room next to hers, where supposedly Miss Cornwall would sleep, a maid was unpacking luggage. Melicent opened her brand new suitcase and commenced to hang up her equally new clothes. It was almost dark and she turned on the electric lights, only to find that they were small and dim, casting huge shadows on the floor and walls from every piece of furniture. She had hoped that Alice Cornwall might prove to be a member of the family in whom she could have immediate confidence, but she feared that the woman was silly and empty-headed. She was sure that nothing underlay her babble of thoughtless conversation. She had been told that in this household it was the custom to dress for dinner and before she changed she looked out of her window. She saw Granger and the Rolls Royce disappear in the direction of the town and some time later she heard him return and park the car in the garage. A wind began to blow outside, whistling through the ugly structure of the old house and ruffling the river. Presently she dressed and went downstairs. Donald Cornwall was already there in a tuxedo, with a glass in his hand.

"An aperitif," he said. "You better have one. This house is damp and cold. How do you like my Aunt Alice?"

"She was very pleasant."

"That's a brave effort." He poured a drink and handed it to her. She swallowed some of it. It was swe.et and warming. A moment later Lester joined them. "Oh! Hello, Miss Waring."

"Good-evening, Mr. Wilbur." She had had a momentary struggle to remember the family name of Hannah's sister.

The young man with the English accent nodded icily at his American cousin.

"Charming old place mother has here, don't you think?"

"It's very nice."

"Exactly. Precisely. Extraordinarly nice."

There was a long pause and he said nothing else. Donald Cornwall spoke ironically. "Very nice, indeed."

"Eh?" Lester regarded his cousin. "Oh, yes--nice--what?"

Donald nodded and the sparkle in his eye increased. "Yes. About the nicest little place in the world."

Lester thought about that for a while. Finally he started as if he had been slightly frightened, walked to the tray where the decanters were, poured a drink for himself, looked at his cousin, drank the entire contents of the glass at once, and said, "Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice," very rapidly.

There was another long pause. Donald appeared to consider his cousin's remark and then nodded his head sagaciously.

"The very word. Nice."

Lester was pouring another drink for himself. He looked up.

Mrs. Wilbur came into the room. She said: "Well, children, dinner will be ready almost immediately. Have you had your second drink, Lester?" She explained that to the others. "Lester is never really comfortable unless he has had his second drink."

"I can understand that," Donald Cornwall said solemnly.

Melicent looked out of the window and bit her lip. She thought that she had never seen anyone quite as stupid as Donald's cousin, Lester.

"He's down at Oxford," Mrs. Wilbur continued.

Lester cleared his throat. He did it with an expression of mild satisfaction on his face, as if the sound might be interpreted as conversation. Hannah Cornwall was last to join them and they went into the dining room.

Throughout the meal Mrs. Wilbur carried the burden of conversation. What she said was an expansion of what she had already said upon their arrival. She repeated long and meaningless anecdotes about both the two deceased members of the family in a glib manner, which suggested that she had no real feeling about their death. For the most part, Melicent looked steadily at the plates, which were changed frequently, and she remained silent. It developed during the meal that Mrs. Wilbur's two other children were away-a boy at Eton and a girl in school in Switzerland.

"I came to the continent for my children. I realized the commonness of American schools and I decided I would sacrifice myself for my own. There was nothing to do but come over here and live while they had their schooling, and here I've been ever since. Of course, I really hate the Belgians and the French. Anyone with any sense would hate them. They're stupid and stubborn, and unless you watch them like a hawk they take advantage." There was much more in the same vein and Melicent wondered what the servants thought if they could understand Mrs. Wilbur's words.

When the meal was ended, Lester made his only contribution to the family gathering. "Now we'll all go down in the cellar for billiards--what--what?"

Miss Cornwall made her excuses by saying that she would like to go to bed at once. That meant necessarily that Melicent would also retire. Donald Cornwall, however, took up the challenge.

"I'll shoot a game with you, Lester, old kid."

"Old kid?" Lester repeated in a puzzled manner.

"Old kid," Donald affirmed.

"Old kid," Lester repeated. He frowned for an interval and then brightened. He turned a cheery face toward his cousin and said, "What!"

Melicent was already accustomed to the exchange of rooms which she secretly made every night with Miss Cornwall and after she had retired in the dark she realized that she was quite tired. For a little while she thought about the strange new household into which she had come. The surroundings were as somber as those of Blackcroft and the people were plainly apprehensive. Had they noticed the possible arrangement of the family names and that D and E already were dead and that, therefore, A might be the member of the family most immediately in danger?

Ten days passed. They were full and uneventful. Melicent wandered the ground around the old house, went down to the river, listened to the meaningless monosyllabic words of Lester and talked occasionally both with Donald Cornwall and Granger. Miss Cornwall gave her a few letters to write so that it would not seem she had brought a secretary to Europe with her for nothing.

Finally Mrs. Wilbur invited her to go with her to attend to the marketing. Melicent accepted gratefully. Any interruption of the routine was acceptable. Mrs. Wilbur's chauffeur drove them into town and they spent two hours going from one market to another. Although Mrs. Wilbur's French was bad, she was able to make herself understood and her reaction to everything Belgian was typical of her.

"It's a foolish country, a perfectly idiotic country. For instance, take that shop over there. Vins, Huilles, Savons. Imagine that. Wines, oils, soaps. That's the way these people are around here. Open up a store and sell wine, oil, and soap for no reason at all. It isn't logical and it doesn't make sense."

Melicent demurred. "Look at our drug stores. Look at what we sell in them."

"That's different. The drug stores sell everything on earth, but these silly people sell just three things--wine, oil, and soap. Makes me sick."

When they had finished their marketing, Mrs. Wilbur suggested that they have some refreshment. "I know a perfectly darling café, but we will have to sit inside. I am dying for a glass of beer. Somehow or other I started to drink beer when I came over here. I know it's vulgar and that I've put on a great deal of weight, but I do like it. Of course, you have to be careful which café you go in because it's a manufacturing town and some of the places are very uncouth."

They went into the Café de la Rose and sat down. Along one end was a bar and behind it a glittering array of bottles. The room contained more than a dozen tables and several of them were occupied by Belgian men and women who, apparently, were having a drink before luncheon. Mrs. Wilbur ordered two glasses of beer. "It will do you good, my dear. I know it's fashionable in America now to be slender, but it's not healthy."

Melicent nodded. "I don't like it much, but I will, if you insist. It was terribly nice of you to take me shopping to-day."

"Quite all right. Love to do it. Having you in my house is a great pleasure.

Reminds me of my own girlhood. I suppose, too, it must be dreadfully boring to be my sister's secretary. She's such an old spinster. Always silent, always gloomy. I suppose by comparison I'm a chatterbox."

There was nothing for Melicent to say. The waiter set the glasses on the table and left them.

"Well, I am a chatterbox," Mrs. Wilbur continued. "But I'm not so empty-headed as you might think. And I don't miss much of what goes on around me. Now you are a nice sensible girl and a mighty pretty girl. I have taken quite a liking to you and I wonder if you would do me a favor."

"I'd be glad to do anything I can," Melicent replied.

"It isn't much. I gathered from my sister that you have been with the family for about a month. You were there when my brother Everitt died. I suppose you know the circumstances that surround our family, the will and everything, and you can't fail to notice the cautious way Hannah lives." Her plump face became a little more serious. "I suppose all of us have been a little bit nervous about ourselves. I know I have. I want my children to get Silas' fortune. That's only natural, isn't it? Now, I babble all the time, but I think just the same and I may say that I was quite surprised when Hannah wrote me that she was coming over here. Donald's father died in South America and he left there.

Everitt died over in Connecticut and Hannah left there. I thought that you probably were pretty wide awake and I wanted to ask you if you thought they left for any other reason than just that they decided to travel."

Melicent was dumfounded. She had thought of Mrs. Wilbur as a person who was garrulous and without a moment of real insight. Now, however, the face of the woman who sat across the table was concentrated. In her eyes was a great shrewdness and it became apparent that behind the careless manner was a considerable degree of mentality.

It suddenly occurred to Melicent that Alice Cornwall Wilbur was a woman in whom she might, after all, have considerable confidence.

She did not answer at once. She realized that when Daniel Cornwall had died and when Everitt Cornwall had died, Mrs. Wilbur had been thousands of miles away. The thought followed through her mind that if she could be sure of anything in the world she could be sure that a woman of Mrs. Wilbur's type was profoundly sane and would never for an instant consider interfering in any way with the human rights of her relatives. The burden of Melicent's private knowledge was great. She looked once more at the plump, earnest woman across the table and then she spoke.

"I don't know what Miss Cornwall would say if she knew that I was talking to you about the Cornwall family. I am sure she would be very angry and there is not much I can tell you. You've already hinted that Miss Cornwall is afraid of her life every moment. I gathered from her behavior that the news of Daniel Cornwall's death was a tremendous shock. She had heard it some time before I came to Blackcroft, but the death of her other brother in her own house seemed to be almost more than she could bear. It wasn't so much grief as fright. Anyone could see that. And his death--"

Mrs. Wilbur was leaning forward and looking straight into her eyes. "Yes," she said softly.

"His death was very strange. Electric lights do kill people, but"--Melicent drew a long breath--"I am going to tell you something which I have not told Miss Cornwall.

In the room next to the bathroom where her brother--your brother--died, there was a hole in the wall opposite the tub. After that hole was used-after your brother was killed-the fire was started, I believe, to hide what happened there."

Mrs. Wilbur's eyes did not waver.

"You said my brother was killed--he was murdered, you mean. That is no surprise to me. It was plain from the attitude taken by my sister and my nephew--though they have not acquainted me with the detail you have told me. Proceed, please."

"Did they tell you of the message your brother received just before his death?"

"What message?"

"The five word message similar to the message received by your brother Daniel just before he died."

"I heard of the strange message that came to Daniel. Donald wrote me at the time." Suddenly she had gone very pale. "But I did not know my brother Everitt had received a similar message, too. Tell me, please, Miss Waring. Proceed."

"The message which Donald says his father received was five meaningless words-

-'Doubtless even a tulip hopes,'' repeated Melicent, whispering. "About two hours before your brother Everitt died, or was killed, he received five other meaningless words with the same initial letters: 'Don't ever alter these horoscopes.'"

"What? Miss Waring, you know of that? You're sure of that?"

"I know it. Why? Why?" whispered Melicent, aghast at the effect upon Alice Cornwall Wilbur. "Why--have you received such a message, too?"

"I? Of course not. Of course not! It is close in here and what you have told me has shaken me, naturally. I didn't expect to learn so much from you, my dear."

The two glasses of beer stood on the table untouched. Mrs. Wilbur paid for them and rose. "But you were infinitely right to tell me." She had regained her composure. "We had better get back to the house."

She went out to the automobile and climbed in with an alacrity unusual in a person of her age. Her conversation on the return was as vacuous as it had always been.

That evening Melicent was in her room dressing, in--the light garments of Miss Cornwall. The door to Miss Cornwall's bedroom opened and the old lady came in.

Usually the exchange of rooms was made almost without discussion. Now, however, Miss Cornwall spoke.

"Are you content here?"

"It's very nice."

"Yes, it's nice for me. I am glad to see my sister again, although we may be leaving shortly."

Melicent looked up quickly. It seemed to her that Miss Cornwall's angular face was contracted; that she felt some internal agitation. She gave Melicent no opportunity to reply to her statement that they might depart soon.

"I want to change our habit a little just for to-night. I have drawn the blinds in my room, but I wish you would go in there and stay in the room with the lights on and write letters for awhile. You know--move around a bit. Take time going to bed. You see"--and the words that followed did not ring quite true--"we are getting so matter-of-fact about this system that it doesn't seem natural. I want you to behave in my room just as I would behave if I were there myself. That's logical, isn't it?"

Melicent felt herself gripped by a sense of foreboding, but she answered calmly,

"Perfectly logical."

She did as Miss Cornwall had suggested. There was note paper on the desk in the bedroom and a fire burned in the grate. For an hour she sat at the desk and wrote a long letter to Helen, her former roommate in New York City. She knew that the letter would not, could not, be mailed, because it was part of her agreement with Miss Cornwall that she would communicate with no one during her year's service. However, into the letter she put all the interesting things she had seen during her stay in Europe and she sealed the letter precisely as if it were going to be mailed. From time to time she walked around the room so that anyone listening could hear her footsteps and she noticed that the lights threw her shadow on the curtains--a shadow which was identical to the one Miss Cornwall would have cast.

When she had finished the letter she threw it on the fire, turned out the lights and went to bed. She did not go to sleep, however. Any undue nervousness on the part of any member of the Cornwall family, any change of any domestic routine, was a cause for grave worry and frantic speculation. Moreover, there ran through her mind continually the memory of the incident with Mrs. Wilbur. Alice, she was A in the series of Cornwall names of whom D and E already were killed. Had Alice Cornwall now received the five meaningless words spelling death which had heralded the fate of the other two?

She had denied it with her lips, but--had she?

The fire in the grate flickered lower and died to glowing coals. The room became dark. Time passed slowly. She heard faint rustlings in the adjoining room where Miss Cornwall slept, and once she thought she heard the sound of the door creaking on its hinges, but afterwards there was silence--a silence that lasted for many minutes. Then somewhere in the distance a motor car started and its sound traveled off into the night.

The sound of the starting of the car was so far away that Melicent made no connection between it and the creakings in the house until some time afterward. She was ultimately convinced that the house had settled for the night and that everything was all right.

It was perhaps one o'clock when she fell asleep. The night outside was very dark and not a breath of wind was stirring. A heavy mist had risen on the river and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the formation of myriad water drops on the outside panes of the window glass, where the mist was congealing. The drops of water illuminated by the ruddy glow of the embers in the grate were cherry red, as if blood had been lightly sprinkled upon the windows.

She woke up choking. The room was pitch dark. Her chest was heavily oppressed and her ears rang. Consciousness came to her instantly and she sat up in bed. She choked again. At first she thought there was something in her throat--a speck of lint from the pillow, perhaps, but she was unable to clear her throat. The feeling of strangulation increased and then, horrible in the gloomy darkness, came the thought that the air in her room had been poisoned. She could smell nothing, but a deep inhalation increased her discomfort.

She threw aside her covers and turned on the light. Dimly discernible in the room was a murkiness, a mist. She ran to the window and leaned out. The whole world was enveloped in a heavy blanket of fog. She could see nothing, not even the shadowy ground beneath her window. Outside air gave her no relief. She was seized with another paroxysm of coughing. It passed momentarily. She drew her head into the room and listened. Somewhere else in the house another person was also choking. She ran to the hall door and turned the knob, but it was locked. Then she went to the door that led to her room, where Miss Cornwall was sleeping. She knew that it would be locked, too, but nevertheless she tried the knob with one hand while she knocked loudly with the other.

The door swung open. It was dark in the other room and she could see nothing.

For a fraction of a second she hesitated, her mind reeling with a sudden fear of what she would find in that room. Then, instinctively crouching, she made a dash for the light switch. It clicked. The dim bulbs illuminated the chamber.

No one was in the bed. Hannah Cornwall had left the room, or had been taken away from it. Melicent had time to appreciate the shocking significance of that fact before she was seized by another paroxysm of choking.

Her eyes ran around the room. A nightdress and a nightcap layover the chair, but there was no sign of Miss Cornwall's clothes. Evidently she had dressed--or had been dressed--before she had been taken away. The heavy river mist poured over the window sill. She was standing with her back to the door that led to the hall, when somebody outside began to shout.

CHAPTER VI

"WAKE up in there. Wake up, I say!"

At first Melicent realized only that it was a man, then she identified the voice as Lester's.

"I'm awake. I'll be out in a minute," she called in reply.

She whirled around and looked back into Miss Cornwall's room where she had been asleep. Apparently the whole household was awakened. She wondered what to do about Miss Cornwall. Should she tell everyone that Miss Cornwall was missing or should she say nothing about it? A fresh paroxysm of coughing made her decide to leave the rooms at once.

She changed into the clothes that were lying across a chair in Miss Cornwall's room--her own clothes--and, half dressed, she stumbled into the hall from her own bedroom. The mist had seeped into the entire house. It dimmed the already feeble electric lights. In long serpentine wraiths it moved through the hall. For a moment she saw no one and then Lester ran down the stairs from the third floor.

"Oh! Hello. Is my aunt awake ?"

Melicent solved her dilemma at once. She was compelled to tell him that Miss Cornwall was not there, for if she said the old lady was still asleep he would certainly go in to awaken her. She choked again before she could answer. "She's gone. I woke up just before you called and looked in her room. She's not there."

He hesitated. All their actions were accomplished quickly and the usual pauses for consideration or emphasis were shortened; nevertheless, they took place. He had one hand on his throat and the other on his chest. "Where's she gone? Never mind, we've got to get out of this."

"What is it?"

Lester shook his head. "I don't know. It's the fog." He was slowly becoming inarticulate. "It's so heavy it chokes you."

"It's just like a poison gas."

"We'll go outside. I am going to get mother. I have sent Pierre for the servants.

They've had terrible mists on the Domrey River before, but I've never heard of anything like this and you can hardly breathe. Better go downstairs and put your coat on. This damned stuff may suffocate us if we don't get away from it."

On the floor below the mist was thicker. It was like a great wall, always ahead of one and never quite enveloping one. She had heard of London fogs that actually made the inside of houses misty, but she had never seen one before. The agonizing choking which had awakened her and which had continued since she opened her eyes was now almost unendurable. The mist itself seemed to have the capacity for irritating her throat. Her chest felt as if it had been compressed by heavy weights. Her eyes ran. She found her coat.

Pierre came down the stairs and spoke to her in his accented English. "The servants are leaving in two automobiles. Mrs. Wilbur's chauffeur will bring the car to the door at once. Mr. Lester Wilbur believes that we must get out of the river valley. In my whole life I have seen nothing like this."

"Where is Mr. Cornwall?" Melicent demanded of him.

"He is not here; he is gone away."

"You are sure?"

"Mr. Cornwall and Miss Cornwall and Granger; none of them are here," repeated Pierre positively. "They have gone away."

Melicent could not argue; she heard a car draw up outside and the front door opened. A mist still thicker than that inside the house poured through the vertical oblong made by the door. It was cold and clinging and when it struck her face she found it almost impossible to breathe in it. The ringing she had noticed in her ears when she awoke became louder. Her chest rose and fell at a rapid rate and she noticed drowsily that their voices were hoarse. She thought she was going to faint.

The chauffeur spoke from some invisible place nearby. "Mrs. Wilbur's limousine is outside."

Melicent made no move toward the car. Was Pierre right in his certainty that Miss Cornwall, Donald, and Granger had all gone away? If so, what did that fact mean? At this moment of her indecision, Lester leaped downstairs.

"My mother has fainted. We must have a doctor here. She was choking terribly."

He began to cough so that he could not speak for a long time and then only by the greatest effort managed to say, "Could you telephone?"

"I'll try."

She switched on the lights in the big front room and went to the telephone. She lifted up the receiver and sat for a considerable time repressing her desire to choke, but there was no answer, no sound. She concluded abruptly that the wire was dead. Probably the operators in the town had been driven away from their switchboards by the same fog.

Finally she hung up.

She could dimly see the chauffeur still standing in the hall. He had a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

There was nobody else downstairs. She went up to Mrs. Wilbur's room. Lester was kneeling beside his mother's bed, frantically chafing her hands.

"How soon did the doctor say he'd be here? She's cold as ice."

"I couldn't get the doctor."

"Take the car then. Wait. You can't speak French. You stay here with mother. I'll go for the doctor." He rushed from the room. Melicent sat down on the bed beside Mrs.

Wilbur and commenced to rub her hands as Lester had. They were cold. The arms were cold. She felt the face of the woman who lay on the bed and it, too, seemed unnaturally chilly. Her mind was working badly and she was coughing so much now that it made any steady activity impossible. Some one had shut the windows, but the mist in the room did not settle. Mrs. Wilbur opened her eyes and Melicent bent over her.

"Oh!" Mrs. Wilbur managed to convey recognition. "You; it's you."

"Yes," said Melicent. "Don't try to speak. I will stay with you. Your son has gone for a doctor."

The woman choked, shut her eyes, but opened them again and signaled Melicent closer. "I must speak," she gasped. "Listen to me. The message--it came to me--I lied to you"--she was whispering with the greatest difficulty, but she was determined to proceed.

She seemed, indeed, to muster all her strength to speak as if willing to spend her last powers for what she had to say. "The message--came to me--I burned it--but wrote it down--"

Her breath trailed away and her eyes closed. Melicent clasped her close as if with the breath of her own body she could revive her; but Alice Wilbur did not stir. Melicent sat beside her and bent, herself choking: "What shall I do? What shall I do?" she asked herself in a hoarse, pitiful voice.

She pulled herself to her feet in one last effort to do something, to get aid. She ran through the house calling, "Help me, somebody," but before she had finished a complete circuit of the ancient building it dawned on her that she was entirely alone with the dead or dying mistress of the place. The servants had left. Hannah Cornwall had vanished.

Granger and Donald were nowhere to be found, and Lester had gone away with the chauffeur.

She went back to Mrs. Wilbur's bedside. Melicent's exertions had exhausted her last resources. She sat down in a chair beside the bed and coughed incessantly. The mist seemed to tear her throat and burn her lungs. She was sure now that in a little while she would lose consciousness. She was fighting to make that period as long as possible. The room began to spin. It was so heavily laden with the poisonous murk that Melicent could scarcely see across it. Her head pounded and she realized dully that her nose was bleeding.

No mist of which she had ever heard held these terrible potentialities. It was more like poison gas than it was like a mist. That thought passed through her mind and its passing stirred her into a last faint flicker of mental activity. Not mist--or at least not wholly mist--but poison gas. Alice Wilbur was another of the Cornwall heirs. She was A in the series which had started with D--next E--now A. When that thought presented itself to her disorganized mind, Melicent screamed feebly, pressed her hand against her mouth, and tried to run from this chamber where she now realized the third murder was taking place.

There was something, too, about a message. Mrs. Wilbur had said something about a message she had lied about. What was that about the message? Melicent fell forward on the floor before she could cross the threshold.

When Melicent opened her eyes she looked into the face of a perfectly strange woman who wore a nurse's costume.

"Ca va mieux, mademoiselle? "

Before Melicent could answer she heard a man's voice. It was a voice speaking in French. She looked around herself quickly and saw that she was lying in a bed in a small white room. A man entered. He was carrying the black satchel which all over the world identifies a doctor. He spoke to her in reasonably good English.

"You are not sleeping any longer, now, mademoiselle? That's good. You have been suffering a great distress. Many people have died of that same distress, but you are young. Your heart is strong. You live! Good! It is right!"

He twirled his small black mustache and sat down on a chair beside her. He took her hand and felt her pulse. "Very much better. It was going too fast, your heart, a little while ago. Much too fast. You were so pale as a white flower when they brought you here this morning. I have many others the same. Some not so lucky as yourself. It is horrible, this--what is the word ?--this cloud."

Melicent's mind was functioning. She remembered the mist. She remembered the terrible night. She remembered falling into an unfathomable oblivion in the bedroom of Mrs. Wilbur. She was about to ask questions when she heard a cheery voice outside her door. It seemed to her that the cheerfulness was slightly forced, but she recognized Donald Cornwall.

"Don't tell me I ne pouvez pas entrer! Don't tell me le medicin est la!" The door was pushed open. "Melicent! Thank God you came through this all right. If I had had the faintest idea of what was happening down here, I believe I'd have gone crazy."

She turned so that she could see him. The doctor glanced at her and then at Donald Cornwall. He patted the girl's hand, rose, and left the room, after promising to return in a little while.

Melicent had been taking stock of herself. She was very weak. Her throat and chest burned and she found that some sort of poultice had been put upon them, but her senses had cleared rapidly and except for a dull headache she was fairly comfortable.

Donald Cornwall crossed the room and took the chair the doctor had vacated. He stared at the girl with an expression she could not understand. He did not speak for so long that she said, "Where were you last night?"

He seemed to summon his mind from distant places. "Funny," he said. He crossed his long legs, took out a cigaret and then returned it to his pocket in respect for her condition. "Funny. About ten-thirty last night Aunt Hannah came down the hall and told me that she had promised her bankers to be in Brussels at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. It is quite a ways to Brussels and there aren't any trains. She said it was very important, because her entire quarterly income depended upon her being there and she asked if I would be good enough to rout out Granger, get the Rolls, and go up with her.

She said she would be safer if it were not known to others that she was making this trip; she said that she had made an arrangement with you so it would seem that she was in her room."

"She did," said Melicent. "But she did not tell me she was leaving."

"She wanted no one else to know. She had figured that we would get to Brussels by two o'clock and that she'd telephone some place along the way for rooms at a hotel.

Said she'd rather start before we'd all gone to bed than try to get up at three o'clock in the morning and drive. We got going and when we stopped on the way to telephone, I sent back a telegram to Aunt Alice, which was to be delivered at nine o'clock this morning, telling her where we were. Granger drove fast and we got up there and went to bed."

Melicent nodded. "I see."

"The first thing this morning we were up and the newsboys were bawling extras. I heard them say something about 'Death Mist in Domrey Valley' and I ran out in my pajamas to get a copy. You must know all about it. You went through it."

"I don't know anything. I just know the mist--"

Donald clinched his jaw. "Poor kid. Well, that fog settled along the river valley here for twelve miles. It took in half a dozen towns and it killed a lot of people."

She asked a question which had been burning in her mind ever since she had become conscious, and which every minute she had expected he would answer. "Did Mrs. Wilbur--"

He shook his head. "She didn't get through. She, and heaven only knows how many other people. Forty or fifty. The civil and medical authorities here are wild. Some of them say it was just a very dense fog and that old people with weak respiratory systems couldn't stand it. Others say that escaping gases from the mills around here were held close to the earth by the fog. These mills are always letting out a lot of poisonous gas, but usually it is dissipated. Anyhow, some people think that the poison from the mills did it."

He combed his fingers through his curly red hair. "I saw one of the early editions that carried the news in Brussels and I dressed like a shot. Didn't even wait for my aunt.

Hopped into the limousine myself and got back here in three hours fiat. I drove up to the house and I found that Lester had come back with a doctor for his mother. It was the doctor who was just in here. He found it was too late to do any good for Aunt Alice, but you were lying there and still breathing, thank God! They brought you down here to the hospital and gave you oxygen."

"Where's Lester?"

"He's next door. He hasn't come around yet. He didn't pass out, I guess, until after they got you here and he had to wait a while for his oxygen. The nurse tells me that he insisted on it." Donald was silent for a long moment. "Funny. I got that bird all wrong. If anybody had asked me who the wettest wet smack on earth was, I would have said my Cousin Lester, but he sure crashed through last night. That lad's entire interior is just one big bunch of spunk when the old bee lands on him. It's pretty bad, you know. Most of the nurses are in bed; one of the doctors died--I guess this town lost about thirty people and as many more in the countryside. Apparently, if you come out of it, you are all right, although they're not even sure of that. I suppose I shouldn't tell you all this because you're pretty sick."

"It would be worse to lie here and wonder what had happened." Melicent stared at the ceiling for a time. "What time is it?"

He looked at his wrist watch. "Half-past one."

"Then I've been unconscious for a long while?"

"Yes, ten hours anyway."

"I feel all right."

"That's good, but you mustn't get up. You must stay in bed a couple of days."

"I suppose so. Has Miss Cornwall come back yet?"

He shook his head negatively. "I don't know what she's done. Probably nothing; probably she hasn't stirred from her room. She sent for me, I suppose, and then for Granger. He will be near her, I hope, when she gets the news about Aunt Alice. I told Granger when I took the Rolls not to let my aunt know about anything until she had to hear it. I hoped I could get back with good news or maybe telegraph her that everything was all right before she got excited about the death mist. But I haven't been able to send her anything pleasant yet."

Melicent looked at him. His face was lined and behind it lurked a ghastly expression which never quite appeared on his features. His eyes were frightened; his skin was pale; and yet usually he was a pleasant, reassuring individual.

She knew the reason for his secret dread. He could not realize how completely she shared his thoughts-thoughts about the Cornwall family and the sudden disastrous doom which had stricken three of its members. She knew that he was worrying, wondering, calculating, whether or not the dreadful fog that had descended upon the Domrey valley could possibly have any connection with the electric light which had killed Everitt Cornwall, and the traces of the rare poison which an autopsy had revealed in his own father.

The one thing about the mist which made it almost unthinkable as a murderer's toll was that it had killed not only Alice Cornwall Wilbur, but dozens of other people. No matter how fanatical his motive, no murderer would ruthlessly take scores of innocent lives on the chance that one intended victim would be included among them.

That was the thought uppermost in her mind and she knew that was the thought which was tantalizing Donald Cornwall. Unless--and this alternative was almost too terrible for contemplation--unless Donald Cornwall himself was an agent behind previous murders in his family. She banished the idea but a more immediate enigma remained to torment her. How had Donald Cornwall and his Aunt Hannah escaped this death plot?

Had they received a forewarning of the tenuous terror that was to slink down the Domrey River valley? If so, why had they not given the warning to others?

It seemed to Melicent, as she lay there and recollected the especial precautions for escape that Hannah Cornwall had taken, that she must have known that the house of her sister was in some sort of danger. And to Melicent it seemed that the knowledge could only have come from the source of the danger.

Yet, if this was murder which had been done, then it was murder on a scale such as had never been committed before. Individual murders by esoteric, untraceable poison.

Murders in houses that burned and destroyed evidence. Murders that now included so many other people and came from such gigantic causes that there would be no investigation of personal motives.

She was conscious that Donald Cornwall was looking steadily at her face. He was on the verge of saying something personal when he changed his mind. "I'll be going now.

I am sorry I have tormented you with all this detail. It must be very terrible for you. If anything could be done to make amends for what you have suffered, believe me, I'd do it.

But for the moment there is nothing we can do. You must rest and be sure that you will get the very best of care in the world. I"--he smiled uncomfortably--"I took the liberty of sending to Paris for a specialist on respiratory troubles. He'll be here to see you this evening."

Melicent nodded, and said "Thank you."

Once again there came to her a feeling she had had many times--a consciousness of the immense power of money to accomplish whatsoever the possessor of that money desired. All the Cornwalls accepted that power as something ordinary and normal. Before she had taken her strange position, it had seemed to her that the potential delight of wealth was fascinating and romantic. Now, all the thrill had been dissipated from it and she could see only the fear which money could engender.

He held out his hand and she took it; and with his clasp, any idea that he could have been concerned in the previous deaths and that he could have had any warning of this last, fled from her. She was sure that he knew no more than she; indeed, that he knew not even as much; for recollection of the last words of Alice Cornwall had returned to her.

"Your aunt," she said, "your Aunt Alice received a message!"

"What?"

"The day before--she took me to town--we had a talk.

I told her about the messages that came to your father and your uncle; and it frightened her. I asked her why she was frightened. I asked, 'Did you also receive a message?'"

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'No!' But when she denied it, I wondered about it; she was so frightened. Last night--in the last words she spoke, after she recognized me, she told me she had received a message."

"What message? What was it? What did it say?"

"She didn't tell me; perhaps she tried to but couldn't. All she could say was-I think I can remember exactly--'The message--came to me--I burned it--but wrote it down.'"

"That was all?"

"That was all."

"Thank you," said Donald Cornwall. "Thank you, Melicent. But now you must sleep; you must try not to think of this any more. I'll follow that up. Poor kid," he said and, patted her hands; then, as if she already were asleep, he tiptoed awkwardly from the room.

She had slept. The nurse had brought her some food and she had found herself able to eat. It was growing dark when she heard Hannah Cornwall's voice outside the door talking to the nurse in a hoarse whisper. "You are sure she's strong enough to see me?"

The nurse answered in French.

Miss Cornwall said, "I am very glad of that," and pushed the door open. She came directly to Melicent's bed. And the girl lying there noticed at once that her employer had changed. There was decision in every line of her sharp angular face, and yet that decision instead of making her countenance more reserved, made it seem strangely human and almost kind. Anyone who knew Hannah Cornwall would have said that she had passed through an ordeal and emerged with a great victory.

When she sat down beside Melicent, however, her face was again natural and she talked with her ordinary, calm directness. There was nothing of the loquacity that had characterized her sister Alice; nothing of the democratic geniality of her nephew Donald.

"Poor Miss Waring. I am afraid I have subjected you not only to private anxiety and tribulation, but to very real danger. An apology for that would be quite useless, would it not?"

"It is all right," Melicent answered. "It wasn't your fault."

"How do you feel now?"

"Very much better."

Miss Cornwall's face expressed transitory relief. "Donald tells me he has sent to Paris for a specialist for you and also for Lester. I heartily approve of that, although the doctor here says that you are both well out of danger." She paused and rearranged her dress, which was black. Since they had left Blackcroft she had worn only mourning, and that costume was now serving to mark a threefold sorrow. "I came for more reasons than just to visit you. I wonder if you feel strong enough to have a talk with me?"

Melicent realized that the talk in prospect was the explanation for the obscure change which had come over her. Even the manner in which Miss Cornwall addressed her was different. She smiled. "I am quite strong. I'd be glad to talk."

"I must warn you at the outset that it will be a difficult subject for discussion. I want to talk to you about the death of my two brothers and my sister."

Melicent felt her flesh tingle, "Yes?"

There was a long pause and then Miss Cornwall commenced to speak in an even tone. "I will be perfectly frank. We will have to go back in our minds to the day when you arrived in my house. And I may say here that I am going to tell you what I am going to tell you partly because I believe you know it already, or at least suspect it, and partly because in the time we have been together I have found you in every way an admirable person might add to that, a courageous and very intelligent person."

Melicent said nothing, and her employer drew in a breath, which was tremendous.

"On the morning after you arrived at Blackcroft you found me reading a letter. It was a letter which had greatly upset me. I had the letter, but later it occurred to me that you might find that letter and read it. I was so obsessed with one emotion--an emotion from which I have never been able to free myself--fear--fear for my life--that I left that letter almost hoping you would find it. I wanted some one else to understand my predicament, to share my worry over it and perhaps to help me prepare for it. The letter came from Donald. He had written to tell me that an autopsy showed the possibility that his father's recent death in Dutch Guiana had been caused by poison administered to him.

Donald reminded me that since the last of us to survive was to inherit father's entire fortune, it would be to the advantage of one of us to insure the removal of the rest of us.

Such a thing is hard to believe and yet I can almost understand it myself after brooding about that will for thirty years. Donald also told me that before his father died he had received a five-word message and that was apparently meaningless; but even at that time Donald wrote that he suspected some one was trying to do away with the Cornwalls. I don't know whether you saw that letter or not, and I won't ask you."

Melicent was almost overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude at this confidence.

For the moment it carried her away and she met it with candid admission. "I did see it. I found the letter and read it."

Miss Cornwall looked at her with appreciation. "I am glad you told me. It is like you to do that. I will try to be brief. The contents of that letter terrified me. You know what happened afterward. Everitt arrived and Donald. On the day of his arrival Everitt was killed. It has been my impression ever since you went into that burning room that you saw something that made you feel his death was unnatural."

"I did," Melicent answered quietly. "I saw a hole in the plaster of the room opposite the bath; the hole was directly opposite the tub in which your brother died."

Miss Cornwall's pale and somewhat withered old hands rose and fell slowly on her knees. Her voice was very low when she spoke. "You should have told me, child. But I can understand why you did not. You must know what I was going through in the hours before Everitt died, because I know you must have understood the strange message that came for him over the telephone."

Melicent looked out of the window at the darkening sky. "I did understand it," she said softly. "Only I couldn't believe my senses."

"Quite so. I could scarcely believe my own. I feared and I doubted at the same time. But after Blackcroft burned I thought it would be best to go away. I came here to visit Alice because, while Alice and I have never been very close, it seemed to me she was one member of my family whom I could trust implicitly. I did not think very clearly of the risk. It is hard to accustom yourself to the thought that some one wants to kill you.

It is hard even when you have taken precautions against it all your life. Of course, I admit freely that in substituting you for myself at night I have ruthlessly endangered your person. I am--I have been--a coward, and my only excuse is that under the same circumstances anyone else would be a coward."

"I understand," Melicent said.

"Now I have told you all; is there anything more that you can tell me?"

Melicent started up at this demand, for it was no less than that.

"Did your nephew tell you that your sister also had received a message?"

"Alice! What? When?"

"On the day before she died--or earlier; I don't know. I'll tell you all I do know.

On the day before the mist she took me shopping--" Melicent related, simply, exactly what had happened and what Alice Wilbur had said just before her death.

In the strange, contrary way of the Cornwalls, Hannah Cornwall now combatted any increase of fear.

"Alice must have been delirious. You put the idea into her head. The fog could not be murder. The whole country, the whole world is reading about it. I understand that professors in every quarter of the globe are trying to explain it. The newspapers are full of it. It can have nothing to do with one family--even with the Cornwall family."

Suddenly she stopped; some one had come into the room. It was Donald.

"How are you?" he said to Melicent. "All right, they say; are you all right? Hello, Aunt Hannah."

"Donald, what have you?"

He had a folded paper in his hand, holding it as one does a document of importance, and this Hannah Cornwall instantly had seen.

"Nothing," said Donald.

"It's Alice's notepaper." The crest was visible. "And her writing."

"Yes," said Donald, and asked of Melicent, "what have you two been doing?"

"I've just told her," said Melicent, "that your Aunt Alice said she'd received a message."

"She said, as I remember," went on Donald, "that she received one, burned it, but later wrote it down. What she said corresponds with what I found in her room."

"You've been back to her house?" his aunt demanded.

"Yes; the fog's cleared away. I brought this from Aunt Alice's room. It was in her desk; you see, she'd written it herself--evidently a message she'd received and burned up, as she said, and then written down from memory." He read: "Days Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates!"

"Alice had that!"

"Do you want to see? It's in her own writing."

Hannah Cornwall stretched out a shaking hand for it.

CHAPTER VII

HE five words, in her sister's handwriting, held her fascinated. Hannah Cornwall could not take her eyes from them. Her hands, which held the sheet of notepaper fiat before her, trembled with terror and after a moment she began to whisper to herself:

"Days Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates."

The world around her stood still and out of the immeasurable silence came the sound of Melicent's voice as she spoke to Donald.

"Where did you find it?"

"In her desk," repeated Donald's voice as if from far away.

"In sight?" asked Melicent. "I mean, your aunt Alice had left it out?"

"Not exactly," said Donald. "It was in her desk with some other personal memoranda; she'd neither left it plainly in sight nor hidden it, if that's what you mean. It was just--there."

Hannah Cornwall succeeded in recalling herself from the isolation of her fright.

"My sister Alice left no notation with this? No explanation of how the original message came to her?"

"There was nothing I could find, Aunt Hannah," replied Donald gently, "which bore any connection or suggested any explanation of this paper at all."

"You searched?"

"Yes; of course I searched."

Miss Cornwall turned to Melicent. "You have told me everything-- everything,"

she emphasized, "which my sister told you of this message?"

"Everything," Melicent assured her. "When she had me out shopping, on the day before the fog, I told her of the messages which had come to others of the family; I asked her if she had ever received such a message; and she denied it, then."

"But in such manner that you then doubted her."

"Yes; I did--a little. It was only when she was dying that she told me she had received a message--and had burnt it but later had written it down."

"That is all you know of this?" insisted Miss Cornwall. "Every atom of your knowledge?"

"Every atom."

"Then we do not know even when it came-how long she had it before it-before it found its effect."

"Aunt Hannah!" Donald cried. "Surely you cannot believe--"

She stopped him. "The fog followed it. This came first. She admitted it before she died; and already she had written it down. This is unquestionably Alice's handwriting. So the fog must have been--" She could not voice the thought that filled her mind. If the mist had been poisoned so as to bring about the death of another member of the Cornwall family, then whoever was bent upon exterminating that family had sacrificed to his design the lives of scores of unrelated people. It was unthinkable! Even a homicidal maniac would scarcely conceive and enact so terrible a deed.

Miss Cornwall's mind pursued this path and yet came out in the end with,

"Somebody killed all those people ruthlessly, without caring, simply to be sure that my sister's death would be included--and would appear accidental."

Donald ruffled his hair with his left hand, a gesture he used whenever he was under emotional strain. "I've been trying to figure it out, Aunt Hannah, ever since I found that. It seems to mean, if you look only at ourselves, that everyone who died in the Domrey valley was killed by human agency, by some sort of diabolical gas and not mist; yet--yet--"

"Yet--what?" his aunt challenged. "And who shall we look to, if not to ourselves?" At this point, she leaped to her feet and crossed quickly to the door. She gazed out in both directions, closed the door and locked it. She went back to her place without any verbal explanation of the act and neither of the others made reference to it.

They knew why she had done it. They followed her feeling. The muzzle of death was turned toward her. The dogs of doom were howling behind her. Anywhere, everywhere there might be ears, eyes, hands, to hear, see and do.

She sat down again and her black silk dress made sibilant sounds as she shook within it. The voice that had always been metallic and true was now uneven. "They have killed Daniel--and Everitt--and Alice; there remain Theodore and Lydia and me."

Suddenly her breath was gone and she seized at the sides of the chair. D--E--A--and Theodore and Hannah!" There had come to her, at that instant, the frightful perception which had reached Donald at sea. "T is Theodore!" she whispered staring at Donald. "T is Theodore; so he comes next! And then--me! We mustn't let them get to Theodore. Don't you see? Don't you see?"

"Of course I see," said Donald dully.

"Why is Lydia left out?"

"We don't know that she is left out," said Donald. "Only left to the last--possibly."

Miss Cornwall was on her feet again. She walked to a window and looked out.

"Do you realize what it will mean if they get to Theodore? He is the only barrier between me and--and them. While he lives and while they stick to this dreadful sequence, I can have some faint hope of peace for myself. But if Theodore should die, then they would be upon me with their poison, their electric wires, their choking mist, their ghastly little messages of death."

Melicent never felt more clearly than she did at that moment what it was to be in Miss Cornwall's place with death moving irrevocably and yet mysteriously always closer to her. She was about to speak a few words to try to calm the old lady, when Donald said abruptly, "I think now we should get the police."

Melicent was astonished at the tone in which Hannah Cornwall answered.

"Never!"

"But, Aunt Hannah--we have lots to go on now--three messages--three deaths--"

"Never!" She was standing. "I would rather run any risk, I would rather die myself than to have to take the prying world into the troubles of my family. If one of us is a, traitor to the others, we--those of us who are left when we find out--we will know; but the world, never! Perhaps I never loved my family as other people love theirs, but no one can ever question my loyalty to them; it is unswerving. We will do what we can. We know little about the circumstances surrounding these deaths. Perhaps, after all, they were accidental--"

"You know that is not true," Donald said calmly.

"Very well, but if the Cornwalls are doomed, then they shall die without public scandal, without seeing their names dragged through the mire of notoriety, without their fates being made a matter of amusement."

Melicent was not given time to consider what Miss Cornwall said. It was not the first occasion at which the old lady had railed against public protection or public investigation. Her words always had rung with deadly conviction and yet, for a fleeting instant, Melicent wondered if they were wholly sincere. The possibility that Hannah Cornwall was involved with the plot against her brothers and sisters had occurred to Melicent in the past; and now there was added the inexplicable fact that when the death mist fell upon the Domrey River valley, Hannah Cornwall already had escaped. If any of the brothers and sisters were traitor to the others, could it be she? If not, did she have, of herself, knowledge which she might be keeping to herself and which dictated this policy of secrecy? Melicent's brain whirled. Her nerves grew as taut as piano wires, and she was still so weak from her sickness that she had little energy on which to draw.

Donald lit a cigarette. "What are we going to do then?"

Miss Cornwall answered after a pause. "There is only one thing to do. We must go back to America. We must go to Theodore. My brother Theodore has been the most careful of all of us in the matter of his own life. He lives in his apartment in New York surrounded by servants whom he trusts. His life itself has been exemplary--although he has crowded it with superstition. He's a vegetarian. A half-dozen doctors call on him every week. I think Father's fortune has been more of an incentive to him to live than it has to any of the others. We must go to him and explain all that has happened. He must never get the death message. He must never die. Before any attempt can be made on him, we must be at his side and he must be forewarned."

Donald nodded slowly. "After all, Aunt Hannah, we have no guarantee that whoever is doing this will stick to the T--H order."

"Except that so far they have adhered to it."

The red-headed young man looked at Melicent. "What do you think?"

"Do you want me to tell you honestly?"

"Of course."

"I think we ought to get the police."

"No!" Hannah Cornwall's eyes blazed. "Not now and never! Not if Theodore dies.

Not if I find myself with death upon me, and not afterward. I have seen our names across the daily papers and sickened at the sight so often that never again will the name of Cornwall be scornfully mentioned. Never again will an impudent, stupid, public employee enter my house. That's final."

Donald crossed the room to his aunt's side and patted her shoulder. "I think I understand, Aunt Hannah, and I will do what I can to keep any such trespass from taking place. We will go to America right after the funeral."

"Right after," Miss Cornwall repeated dully.

There was a long silence. Donald recovered from his aunt the message which he had brought and he reexamined it. Melicent reached for it when he returned it and in her turn looked at it for a long time. The words burned into her brain. There was no sense in them, no relation between them. She thought of the other messages:

"Doubtless Even A Tulip Hopes," "Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes," as she looked at the words before her eyes, "Days Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates." Would there be another such message in Theodore Cornwall's hands? Still another in Hannah's? A message to send them quivering, perhaps shrieking, toward destruction?

Hannah Cornwall broke the silence by speaking in a tone that intimated she wished to say no more about the messages at that time. "Lydia's coming for the funeral."

"Your other sister," Melicent said.

"I've told you about her," Donald observed to Melicent. "Aunt Lydia is the one who married Grand Duke Strang. She lives in Egypt now because they have been exiled.

She doesn't see much of the Grand Duke. He is an old man but he's still trying to bring back the return of the monarchy to Bortvia."

"I remember," Melicent said. "She's coming here?"

"Day after to-morrow."

That ended the discussion. Miss Cornwall repossessed herself of the message and put it in her handbag. A nurse knocked on the door and informed Donald that he was wanted downstairs.

He left the room. Hannah let him out the door and after she secured it again, she said to Melicent. "I am returning to the home which was my sister's. I am assured there is now no danger there. But who knows? Who dreamed of what happened last night? But it may be true that there is no more danger for me there than elsewhere. Of course, convention requires my presence there. Will you return there to me, when you are able?"

"Yes," said Melicent. "And I feel able now."

"I am very glad. It seems that recovery from this strange seizure--when recovery occurs--is rapid and complete. I am very glad indeed; you can understand how I depend upon you. I will go now, with Donald; follow when you can."

She left the room and Melicent reflected that the finding of the third message would undoubtedly make her employer more of a recluse than ever. She would spend not only her nights behind locked doors but also her days.

When the nurse returned, Milicent asked for the doctor and, an hour later, she was allowed to dress and depart. She found that arrangements had been made for a car to drive her to the Domrey and before leaving the hospital, she tried to see Lester Wilbur but was told that he was asleep, so she went on.

Arriving at the mansion, she found a wreath on the door, and about the place a lugubrious silence. Miss Cornwall and Mr. Cornwall, she was told, had returned some time before but had been driven to town together on some errands.

Melicent walked to the river. Tall trees grew along its edge and she sat down beneath them. The sky was bright blue. The sun shone, and although it was cold enough so that an overcoat was necessary, it was still pleasant. During the night a fringe of ice had formed along the edges of the river and she tossed stones out on the crust. Some of them slid until they splashed into the water. Others made holes in the ice and fell through.

She was engaged in this idle enterprise when she heard someone approach her. She turned and was surprised to see Granger walking from the direction of the house. He came up to her, sat down on the root, kicked a large stone loose from the partly frozen ground, and shattered a long stretch of the thin ice with it.

"You all right now?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"I'm glad," he said, with feeling. "God, if that had got you."

She made no comment and he proceeded. "I seemed to startle you just now."

"I guess I thought you were away, driving Miss Cornwall and Mr. Cornwall."

"You call him Donald, don't you?" demanded Granger jealously.

"Sometimes."

"But not to me. I see." He dropped that tack. "No; I didn't drive them to-day. I drove in the night--to get her away before the mist, and him, too. But I didn't drive them to-day. What's going on, up at the house?"

"Nothing; but I really don't know. I hardly went in."

"Who's coming for the funeral; anybody?"

"Yes; the other sister, Lydia."

"I supposed so; but she is coming, is she? They told you?"

"Yes; she arrives day after to-morrow."

He nodded absently, his eyes traveling over her. They took in her smart shoes, her silk-clad legs, her heavy coat and the great fur collar which was turned up around the back of her head and hid half of her amber-colored hair.

"How do you like your job now?" he demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how do you like it?"

Melicent looked at him with direct eyes. "It's all right."

He laughed at her. "What would have to happen to phase you? Didn't you mind being nearly killed in the fog the other night?"

"I minded it," Melicent answered simply.

"I was crazy when I thought of you in it."

She made no response to that except to throw another stone which skipped over the ice and disappeared in the water.

Granger sighed. "Don't you like me?"

"Of course I like you. You've always been nice to me, polite, friendly; and we're on the same job. Why do you ask me?"

He sat around a little in order to face her. "You don't love me, though?"

"No," she answered as calmly as she could. "I don't. Do you expect me to love you?"

There was an undercurrent beneath what he was saying which she could feel but which she could not comprehend. It was the undercurrent of his words that startled her more than the surprising direction which they had taken. She reflected that she did like Granger and she was not afraid of him. He was the one person in the whole Cornwall ménage about whom she had no cause for ulterior suspicions.

He answered her questions almost lightly and after a pause. "Oh, I don't know exactly why I asked. It's rude, I know, but I couldn't help it. I haven't seen much of you but I think you're a wonderful girl. I am pretty crazy about you."

The last thing on earth for which Melicent was emotionally prepared at that time was love-making, even verbal love-making. She tried to turn aside whatever words he contemplated saying. "If you're trying to make me interested in you--to which I don't object--then for Heaven's sakes be reasonable about the way you do it. Right now I'm still half-sick and Miss Cornwall is nearly crazy and so am I. There's going to be a funeral day after to-morrow and if I ever get to be a human being again, after all I've been through, why perhaps we could become friends. It's mean of me to talk like that but my nerves are just about broken."

"I see. I'm sorry." He looked about and behind him and then continued. "But I had to say it. I can't always stand aside and say nothing and do nothing while he's making the most of the inside track he's got."

"He," said Melicent, becoming excited. "Who?"

"You know who. Mr. Cornwall to me--Don to you. I tell you I can't stand it." He glanced about and behind him again. Evidently he saw no one for he returned to her; but Melicent arose.

He grabbed her hand. "No; wait here."

"Why?"

"I've started; I might as well say it through. I'll not give you up to anybody--

anybody, do you hear? Listen to me!"

She was trying to tear her hand away but he clung to it and pulled her closer. For a moment she fought him but could not get free; on the contrary, he got her within his arms and clasped her close to him and kissed her.

She kept her lips from him but he kissed her face while she struggled. He heard a cry behind her; it was a woman's voice; Miss Cornwall's voice.

They were in sight of the house, and while she struggled, she realized that Miss Cornwall must have returned. Where was Donald, then? Was he with her?

Suddenly Granger let her go and she slipped on a patch of ice and went down to one knee. Granger helped her up, his hands suddenly robbed of their violence. He was very gentle with her and ashamed.

"My God," he whispered. "Now she'll fire me; she'll send me away; and you'll stay--you'll stay."

Melicent at last could look about and she saw Miss Cornwall, but much nearer, Donald. His aunt had shouted but he had run ahead of her. Now, since her struggle with Granger was over, Donald stopped and waited for his aunt. He had no taste, as Melicent well knew, for a scene and now, if it were not for his aunt, he would have gone away; but she came up and drew him on with her. "Granger!" Miss Cornwall accused. "What does this mean?"

He faced her but had nothing to say. "I dispense with your services. You are dismissed from this moment. If you have not apologized to Miss Waring, you may do so; then leave. Pack up your things and come to the house. Your pay will be given you."

Don Cornwall stood breathing rather rapidly but he said not a word; in fact, at this moment, he looked away.

Granger gazed at Miss Cornwall and then at Melicent, to whom he bowed, whispering something she could not hear. He straightened, glanced at Donald and turned on his heel and walked off.

Donald, at the same moment, moved away; and there seemed to Melicent something slightly chivalric in it. With Granger dismissed, he would not stay to make it harder for the man who had been in his aunt's pay.

Melicent's eyes followed Granger's straight figure, and as she stood there with the old lady, the sun seemed less bright and the day colder. The man in whom Mr. Reese had said she could have implicit confidence, if everyone else failed, was being sent away not to return, except for his final pay. And she had liked him.

Miss Cornwall seemed to sense her feeling. "I am sorry, Miss Waring. He might swear never to trouble you again but such a man is not to be trusted. I could never trust him again. I must have complete loyalty to me; and love for one person and loyalty to another are not compatible. There was nothing else to do." Suddenly her sternness broke to anxiety. "But I can count on you, can't I? You won't leave me? You won't go away--or find other interests?" The nervous tension in her voice increased. "You have meant everything to me through this, the most dreadful period of my life. I don't know what I'd have done without you. I'd do anything reasonable to keep you. If you want more money-

-"

"I'm not staying for money, Miss Cornwall."

"I know. I know," Miss Cornwall emitted a tremulous sigh. "You stay out of complete loyalty to me. You are a fine girl, Miss Waring. A splendid girl, and brave.

There isn't much sentiment left in me and I suppose I'm a hard old lady, but as much as I can be of anyone, I am fond of you. I rely on you implicitly."

Melicent said, "Thank you."

That rare instant of human emotion departed as quickly as it had appeared. Miss Cornwall fastened her mind immediately on facts and present problems. "He's gone and that's that. We can get along with some one in his place until we get back to America."

They went to the house together and Miss Cornwall immediately sought her room; Melicent remained downstairs and was at a window when a car drove up to the house and Lester climbed out. He came in the door, nodded to her and helped himself immediately to a drink; at the same time he greeted her. Most of the manner she had first found in him had left him.

"Hello, hello," he said. "They pronounced me cured and told me I could go home."

"How do you feel?"

"I feel terrible." He swallowed his drink. "If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to my aunt about Aunt Lydia." "Your aunt is upstairs in her room." He left her and she sat down by a window that over-looked the slow, cold river and the spot where Granger had given way to his emotions. As she had felt at the time that there was an under-current to his words when he began to speak to her, she felt now that the whole episode had a significance and a purpose beyond what it seemed. Deliberately Granger had done what he had; not impulsively. He had feigned impulse.

He had liked her, she knew; and she liked him. She could believe, without over-flattering herself, that he might have fallen in love with her; but the Granger whom she knew would not have lost control of himself as he had, except for some planned reason.

What reason?

She was still puzzling over it when Donald Cornwall entered the room, seeking her. He did not refer in any way to the episode with Granger; nor did she.

Later in the day, she learned that Granger had obtained his pay and was gone; but she did not see him. She was alone now, absolutely alone with the Cornwalls and their mounting fates.

On the second day at noon Lydia Cornwall arrived. Her husband did not accompany her, but with her came her maid and Ahdi Vado, the Hindu mystic, to whom she had been devoted for many years. Hannah Cornwall did not go to meet them. The discovery of the fatal message among Alice's papers had shattered Hannah's last remnant of independence, so that she scarcely dared to leave her room even in broad daylight. It was Donald who went to town and Donald who brought back his Aunt Lydia.

When they arrived Melicent was engrossed in reading a long account of the death mist in the English paper printed in Paris. The account offered several explanations then current for the mist, among them the theory that it was merely a very heavy fog which had affected the respiratory systems of the old and the feeble; or that it was an ordinary fog which had held to earth the gaseous waste products of the factories in the district. She had reached the point which described the effect of the lethal miasma and which recounted the death of Alice Cornwall, when Donald appeared with his aunt.

Lydia Cornwall was brought into the house in a wheelchair with something of a flourish. She was a huge, unhealthy woman, with a puffy face, grotesquely diminutive hands and feet, and a deep, wheezy voice. The Hindu rolled her into the living room.

Melicent had a chance to look at him before any introductions were made. Ahdi Vado was not much over five feet in height. His skin was very dark and his profile aquiline. He had black, intent eyes and coal black hair, of which only the edges were visible because his head was swathed in a bright green turban.

In a moment Donald entered the room. "Aunt Lydia, this is Miss Waring--Aunt Hannah's secretary."

The small hand at the end of Lydia Cornwall's heavy arm was held out. "How do you do, my dear." She smiled and the expression somewhat relieved her gross features.

"Miss Waring, may I present my great and trusted friend, Ahdi Vado."

The Hindu bowed. "It is a delight." When he raised his head he was smiling and his smile made the usual emphasis of white teeth always to be found in dark-skinned races. His eyes looked directly at Melicent and she felt in them something very much like impact. Afterward she remembered that she had been a little discouraged to know that Lydia Cornwall was accompanied by a Hindu, but she knew as soon as she saw him that she would never be afraid of him. She was sure that however fanatical he might be, his life was internal and spiritual rather than external and ominous. He would always be in the background.

Lydia Cornwall was talking about him, partly to her and partly to Donald. "You must get to know Ahdi Vado. He has a wonderful mind and a beautiful soul. Some day the whole world will realize that these men who have come to us from monasteries high in the Himalayas carry a message which will bring to all humanity both peace and understanding." She blinked at Ahdi Vado and he repeated his low bow.

"I am grateful."

Lydia Cornwall then addressed Donald. "Where's Hannah?"

"She's in her room."

"What's the matter with her? Sick?"

"Not exactly," Donald answered. "She's indisposed."

"Humph! Indisposed! It is hard to believe. She's been as healthy as a country wife all her life." Lydia turned to Melicent. "I've been the sick member of the family. To look at me you wouldn't think so, but I'd been dead a good many years ago if it hadn't been for Ahdi Vado. Well, if the mountain won't come to Mohammed--Help me upstairs, somebody."

Donald came to her side but the Hindu was already there. She lifted herself laboriously from the wheel-chair and walked out of the room. She leaned heavily on the small, dark-skinned man. Pierre appeared at the door and took her other arm, making Donald's assistance unnecessary. He stayed with Melicent. When the trio on the stairs had moved ponderously out of earshot, he said, "Well?"

"She's the strangest of all the Cornwalls," Melicent answered.

"I have a funny family."

"I didn't mean to offend you."

He looked at her and realized the reason for her apology. "Oh, you didn't offend me. Far from it. As a matter of fact, I think all my aunts and uncles would have been rather fine people if it hadn't been for grandfather's will. That's what warped them. Take Lydia. She's spent most of her life in Europe. She's married to a nobleman and yet she still clings to the solid, informal Anglo-Saxon manner. I am not praising her. Just pointing out the fact. You know--"

He did not speak for so long a time that she prompted him. "Yes?"

"I was thinking about the funny thing about Lydia. Her name doesn't begin with a D, or an E, or an A, or a T, or an H. If we are right about our theory of sequence, if we are right about this whole ghastly affair, she'll be the last one left alive."

"Of course I have thought of that," Melicent said slowly.

"If she proves to be the last survivor, it would be a big break for Bortvia--or at least for the royalist party. Yet ten millions properly placed ought to be enough to bring back the monarchy in a principality of that size. Then what would Aunt Lydia do with the rest of the money? She isn't honestly interested in anything except that Hindu mystic and his religion; and money has no place in that."

"Is it possible," asked Melicent, "that the Grand Duke, her husband--"

Donald shook his head. "Of course I've considered it. He'd marry for money, of course; he has. That's quite according to his code; but murder for money--no, it simply isn't done by his sort. Of course he wants the throne; and I know that murder is one of the oldest and most respectable methods of obtaining, or regaining, a throne; but you murder, then, somebody who has a throne or who stands between you and it. You don't murder, for money to buy back the throne, your wife's relatives. There's a difference."

"Is your Aunt Lydia as sick," asked Melicent, "as she seems to be?"

"Who knows? She doesn't doctor now. She contemplates and depends completely on Ahdi Vado. But I'd say, offhand, she hasn't long to live. Which certainly suggests that, if she is to be the last survivor, the fates aren't going to be over-deliberate in finishing up the others of the family. . . . By the way, I've something for you. Granger sent it to me with the request that I hand it to you."

"Granger?" It was the first mention of him since the episode by the river.

Donald took a letter from his pocket. "He mailed it to me because he was aware that Aunt Hannah does not permit you to receive communications from outsiders."

Melicent took it and opened the sealed envelope and read to herself : My very dear Melicent:

No one can harm me or you for writing your name. Miss Cornwall gave me a chance to apologize to you before I went; but with them there, I could not say a word. If we were alone, what would I say?

Some time I'll tell you, alone with you. I am sorry for one thing--sorrier than ever I can say; that is, that I am separated from you. But I will not be, for long.

Mr. Reese told me he told you that you could always count on me, whoever else failed. You could; that is what makes me most desperate now. I cannot always be near enough to help you as quickly as you may need me.

Do you realize that now you are completely in the Cornwalls' power? And who of them--do you know?--is doing these awful things ? You are trying to figure out the affair; that is one reason you are staying. Do you realize what will happen if you succeed in what you are trying? If they found you really had figured it out, what--do you suppose--

would happen to you?

Don't be decieved by what anyone of them says to you. Even if I didn't love you, I couldn't keep any decensy and completely abandon you.

Forever faithfully,

GEORGE GRANGER.

Melicent looked up and met Donald's eyes. The envelope had been handed to her, sealed; and she did not, at that moment, doubt that it was exactly as it had arrived in Donald's hands, that he had not tampered with it.

"All right?" he asked, his eyes steady upon hers.

"All right," she replied.

"Sure of it?" he insisted.

"I--guess so." For what did she know of anyone about her? She fled to her room and there reexamined the letter. Plainly it had been hastily written; and Granger had misspelled two words--deceive and decency.

She whipped the letter out of sight as she heard Miss Cornwall approaching the door. It opened and her employer looked in upon her. Hannah Cornwall had in her hand a cablegram.

"This just arrived," she said. "It is from Mr. Reese. Did you in any way communicate with him about Granger's dismissal?"

"I?" returned Melicent. "No; of course not."

"I did not," said Miss Cornwall. "Nor my nephew. So evidently Granger himself must have cabled Mr. Reese, who, of course, previously had heard of my sister Alice's death."

Melicent waited.

"He is exceedingly upset over my discharging Granger," Miss Cornwall continued. "Exceedingly. But I am sure that I did right; don't you feel I did right?"

"I guess so," said Melicent.

"What ?"

"I said," repeated Melicent, "I guess so."

CHAPTER VIII

ON the evening after Alice Cornwall's funeral, Melicent found Lester sitting in the library with a drink at his side. Lester had just put his sister on the train. She had preferred to go back to school and the family had decided that, although such a return was unconventional, it would perhaps be best. Melicent welcomed the opportunity of seeing Lester alone. During her first few days in Belgium, she had thought of him as an errant fop. Now she thought differently. He was sitting silently and moodily near a log fire.

"Do you mind if I talk to you?" she said.

"Not a bit. Delighted. Have a drink?"

"No, thanks." Melicent took a chair. "I haven't much to say and what I can say will be no real expression of the way I feel. I know that the blow of your mother's death was great but we will be going back to the States fairly soon and I will have to speak now or not at all."

Lester swallowed some of his drink and said nothing.

"It wasn't much," Melicent continued. "It was only--thanks. You came back in the house in that mist the other night and you got me off the floor and down to the hospital when you were almost blue from choking yourself. There's nothing I can ever do to repay you, but I do want you to know that I think it was pretty grand. Grand's not the word. It was brave, and gritty, and generous--"

His bland eyes looked at her with something like feeling. "Oh, that."

It was all he said. For an instant Melicent was embarrassed and then she realized that his training had been English. He was brought up to appear to be a silly man and the fiber of character inside him was never allowed to show. At a time like this, when a deep emotion was being expressed to him, he could only say "Oh, that." It made her want to cry. It made her realize that someone who knew Lester and understood him could grow very fond of him. Long afterwards she remembered the scene in the library and she supposed that learning such things about people was part of becoming something more than a provincial person.

But at the moment Lester seemed embarrassed. She changed the subject. "You ought to come back with us to America."

He shook his head. "I'll be going to England next week, but some day I'll have a shot at America. Like to see you over there."

"I'd like to see you, too."

There was a long pause. At last Melicent said: "Has your cousin Donald told you our feeling about the three deaths that have occurred in your family?"

Lester looked up quietly. "Yes; he's told me quite a lot."

"What do you think, then?"

"I think it's too much for me," said Lester. "Donald's taking it on; he's more fit for that sort of thing. Of course I'm on call, if needed." There was another silence. At the end of it, Melicent rose, smiled almost timidly at Lester, who returned the expression, and left the room. She went slowly upstairs. She knocked on Hannah Cornwall's door and was admitted. Hannah was packing and Lydia sat beside her in the wheel-chair. It was Lydia who spoke to Melicent.

"Good evening, Miss Waring."

"Good evening."

Lydia glanced at Hannah somewhat nervously and then returned her attention to Melicent. "My sister tells me that you are familiar with the horrible circumstances which surround our family."

"Yes," Melicent answered.

"I suppose you are aware that I am going to accompany you back to America."

"I didn't know it."

"I think it is my duty. Hannah has told me the whole story of the messages and the deaths. I am inclined to believe that they have no connection with each other, and so is Ahdi Vado."

"Ahdi Vado?" Melicent asked the question before she realized that it contained a considerable element of surprise.

"Nothing in my life takes place without his knowledge. It is his belief that the messages preceding the deaths were sent by some one who is psychic, or by some one who has perceived the order of the names and wishes to point it out. It would be difficult for me to explain his theory with any brevity, because it depends on his knowledge of the function of the mind and its relation to matter. However, he has made clear to me how fates can follow a pattern unconsciously made in the mind. It may be that our parents, in naming us, unconsciously gave us names which would merely describe our destinies. It was then ordained in what order we would, in the end, leave the earth; and, without knowing this fact and yet responding to it, our parents chose names with corresponding initials.

"No human hand needs to intervene to carry out what was always ordained.

Therefore, the three deaths were not murders. The messages, as I have said, may well have been warnings sent by some person, with faculties far above the ordinary, who perceived the pattern of our lives and who wanted to warn each of us, a little before the end."

"I see," Melicent answered. Internally she experienced a strong resentment against Lydia Cornwall's belief in what she felt to be rubbish, but she noticed that whenever Lydia mentioned the Hindu her voice held almost a reverence.

Abruptly, however, Hannah Cornwall lifted her head from the trunk which she was filling with clothes and spoke in a strained, unnatural voice. "Ahdi Vado may be all you say he is, Lydia. His knowledge of the universe may be great." She stepped toward the huge woman in the wheel-chair and lowered her voice. "But what would you say if Theodore got a message and Theodore was killed?" The last word was whispered almost in Lydia's face.

She shrank away from her sister and moved her head to one side. "Hannah--

gently! This thing is driving you out of your mind."

Hannah's eyes remained fixed on the face of her sister. "Driving me out of my mind?" She laughed without mirth. "Driving me out of my mind? And how would you feel in your mind, even with all your synthetic Yogi calm, if your name began with an H?

How would you feel?"

"I think I will excuse myself. Would you help me, Miss Waring?"

Melicent looked at her employer, but Hannah Cornwall appeared to have forgotten that there was anyone in the room but herself. The girl pushed the chair toward the door, unlocked it and went out.

That night, when she changed rooms with Hannah, Melicent learned a little more of the family plans.

"We are going to open the house on the Palisades."

"House on the Palisades?"

Hannah nodded. "Yes, the old house. That's the one that my father lived in and his father before him. My father built it--it's a copy of a Spanish castle. I lived there when I was a child." For an instant Miss Cornwall's eyes were reminiscent. "It seems to me we were happy then. I have almost forgotten what it was to be happy. I have forgotten. Are you happy?"

"Well--"

"Not now. You couldn't be happy now, with this frightful affair hanging over us like a stone on a string. You're not happy now, but you were happy and you will be happy again in a year, in less than a year, won't you?"

"I think--"

"Never mind. Forget about it. We are going to Father's house. But first we will stop to see Theodore. I'd like to persuade him to join us there. Three of us--Lydia, Theodore and myself. We could make our stand against death together. The house is suited for it. It is as grim as an old fort and as well protected. Maybe you've seen it. It's just this side of Highland. You can see it from the road. I will find some new servants, some strong ones, and we will all wait together."

If Melicent had been told two months before that she was to go to a castle on the Palisades and wait there with three fantastic and morbid old people for the coming of unnatural fates, she would have said that under no circumstances would she dream of doing anything like that. So quickly does the mind adapt itself to any such circumstances, however, that Melicent nodded in agreement. "All right."

"Are you packed?"

"Yes, almost completely."

"Good."

Miss Cornwall went to the door of her room and unlocked it. She entered Melicent's room and turned. "Good night."

Just before she closed the door Miss Cornwall spoke again. "Donald says that you and he discussed the fact that Lydia is not in the five-word sequence."

"We did."

"So I don't believe we will need to contemplate giving her any special protection."

The door closed.

Donald Cornwall stood beside Melicent on the deck of the ship. Around them was a fog, padding the sound of shipping. The liner was feeling its way into the upper harbor of New York. It was quite cold. The rail was opaque until one put one's hand upon it and then it glistened with moisture. Donald was speaking m a matter-of-fact tone. "Glad to be getting back?"

"Yes."

"Uncle Theodore cabled us last night. We are going to stop at his place for a few days."

"He lives in town, doesn't he?"

"Yes, on 73rd Street."

"Seventy-third Street." Melicent thought about that. She could not make herself believe that in a few hours she would be on Seventy-third Street in New York City.

Seventy-third Street--with taxicabs and limousines and delivery wagons. With Fifth Avenue buses running not far away and Central Park. With everything familiar. With subways shaking the ground and elevated trains roaring overhead. In New York! Her mind was incapable of visualizing the fact. They had come to an oasis in the long Cornwall nightmare. It would be good, ineffably good. It would be reassuring. It would give her the courage to go on up the Hudson with these people who had become like the walking dead. He read something of her thought. "I can imagine how you will feel. New York's your home."

"I can hardly imagine how I will feel myself."

There was an interval of silence. "It is almost impossible for me to understand why you stick to Aunt Hannah under the circumstances."

That was a question which she had asked herself a thousand times, and she had never found a wholly satisfactory answer for it. She made no reply.

"Are you fond of my aunt?"

"I like her," Melicent said.

He shook his head. "You have me completely bewildered, at any rate. I always thought that beautiful girls were--"

"Dumb?"

"Not dumb. Frivolous."

"If that's a definition, then I'm certainly not beautiful."

He smiled in appreciation. "Perhaps you're the exception to prove the rule. Do you want flattery?"

"It's unnecessary."

At the pier, Mr. Reese met them but his function, for the time being, consisted chiefly in aiding them with the customs examination. He had a few words, apart from the others, with Miss Cornwall and Lydia, but he merely shook hands with Melicent and congratulated her upon her safe return. The subject of Granger's dismissal was not mentioned in Melicent's hearing.

Mr. Reese reported, however, that he had not only sent Melicent's letter to Helen but had looked her up and, finding her still out of a job, he had repaid to her for Melicent the money owing to Helen. Now, he said, Helen had a job.

He returned to his office and an automobile which had been sent by Theodore Cornwall took the rest to Seventy-third Street. Melicent's emotions, while she drove through the heart of New York City, were inexpressible. She thought about her old roommate and she passed within a block of the offices where she had worked so contentedly and for such a long time. Hannah and Lydia sat together on the back seat.

Melicent and Donald occupied the side seats. The car turned into Fifth Avenue and moved with traffic to Seventy-second Street, where it went around the block in order to stop at the door of the apartment building in which Theodore Cornwall lived.

An elevator took them to the top floor. They rang the bell of the apartment on that floor and were admitted by a butler. After leaving their wraps, they were ushered into a large living-room, from the windows of which a long stretch of the skyline of New York could be seen. Theodore Cornwall rose to greet them.

He seemed even more thin and angular than Melicent remembered from his short visit to his sister in Connecticut. Now Melicent had seen all the family and she found Theodore most nearly resembling Hannah. He had the same indominability and an identical nervous tension. His eyes were as hard and his nose long and sharp. He had the Cornwall chin, and although his manner of living had been different from Hannah's, one would have easily guessed that they were brother and sister.

His demeanor as they came into the room was irritable. Melicent thought immediately that he was not at all happy to see his two sisters and that he was receiving them only under suppressed protest. Hannah came first and Lydia after her. Lydia's wheel-chair had not yet arrived from the ship and she walked, heavily and unsteadily.

"How do you do, Hannah," Theodore said, and took the hand of his sister. He moved to Lydia and surveyed her for a considerable period. "You've changed, Lydia.

We've all changed. And this is Donald. How do you do, Donald?"

Everyone took chairs. Melicent was introduced. Before any conversation commenced she was able to survey the room. It was very simply, almost austerely, furnished. The wall was bare of pictures or any other decorations and on the floor there were no rugs.

Lydia was replying to Theodore. "It's been a good many years since I've seen you, but you haven't changed. You are the youngest looking one of us."

"And I intend to stay young," Theodore answered. "I've devoted my life to that.

Early rising. Early retiring. Baths. Exercise. Ultra-violet treatment and no meat. Every month for the last forty years I have had a complete medical examination. I have a doctor who lives near me, whose sole purpose it is to watch my health. You will notice, for example, that my apartment, which comprises this entire floor, is designed with an idea of sanitation. No rugs and pictures. They collect and breed germs. The air that enters this apartment is filtered."

He seemed suddenly to realize that he had embarked upon the one subject which interested him--his health--at a time when a discussion of himself was perhaps not quite appropriate. He collected his thoughts and sighed. "But I didn't mean to burden you with my personal views. I meant to apologize for the barrenness of my household."

Donald Cornwall looked at his uncle with patent disgust. "Like a hospital, eh?"

His uncle, however, did not seem to resent the expression. "I have designed it on the lines of a hospital," he answered almost proudly. "Life is a great gift and since science has made it possible for us to extend it, we should make every use of the science available."

Lydia interrupted him. "I am very tired and, if you don't mind, I'd like to be shown to my room. I expect Ahdi Vado will arrive presently and when he does, have him sent to me. I'd like to have a treatment at once."

"Treatment?" Theodore repeated with interest.

"A treatment."

"Then you, too--"

Lydia shook her head with disdain. "Ahdi Vado is not a doctor. He is a great thinker. The treatments he gives me are psychic. It is the mind, the soul, the psyche, which you should have cared for during your life, not the body."

Theodore summoned his butler and Lydia was escorted from the room. He watched her go with faintly amused eyes. The scene had interested Melicent. Here, after forty years, was a result of Silas Cornwall's decision to bestow his millions upon the last child to be alive. Here sat Hannah with her locks, her keys, her system of changing bedrooms, her revolvers and her hand-picked, annually changed group of servants. That was her system for survival. Lydia's system was concentration and mental development, actuated by the diminutive, electrical Hindu. Theodore's was more obvious--sanitation, diet, medical care. They were all for the same purpose. Each one was morbidly interested in himself. Each one for almost four decades had fought a grotesque duel with chance and circumstance--a duel purely for survival.

When Lydia had gone, Hannah Cornwall wasted no time in changing the subject from family systems of longevity to the danger which hung over that family. She began on a commonplace.

"I'm sorry to descend on you like this, Theodore."

"I assure you--"

"Lydia and I practically forced ourselves upon you.

You doubtless realize that we had a reason for it."

"I presumed that since three of the family have died in the past four months you thought we should be together for a while."

"It was more than that."

Theodore looked at his sister with gravity. "More?"

"Much more. Did you receive a letter from Donald about six weeks ago telling about his father's death?"

The old man turned his attention to his nephew. "I did. And I may say, Donald, that I was rather shocked by it. The idea that you should disinter your father for an autopsy--pained me. I was relieved by your words--that after your father had died, only traces of a poison common to the human system were found."

Donald was obviously disconcerted by this criticism. Whatever else of real sorrow he felt was concealed. "Do you remember the mention of a five-word message my father received shortly before his death?"

Theodore hunched his shoulders together in thought. Finally he said, "Vaguely. I remember some such thing vaguely."

Melicent looked at Donald. He was calm. Hannah, however, was plucking at the ruffles in her black dress. She spoke.

"The message was, 'Doubtless Even a Tulip Hopes.' "

"Silly business," Theodore said.

"The initials of those five words," his sister continued, "spell 'death.'"

"What!" Theodore's eyes moved from side to side. They could see him mentally quoting the message. "So it does. And he received that--that cryptogram before he died?"

"The day before," Donald replied.

"And on the afternoon Everitt was killed by the light circuit in my house, he received a telegram," Hannah added.

"What did the telegram say?" Theodore asked in a stony voice.

"It said, 'Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes.' "

"'D,'' the old man muttered, "'E,' 'A,' 'T,' 'H.' Good Lord! Where did they come from?"

There was a short silence. Donald said, "We don't know."

Theodore rubbed his thin hands across his chin and cheeks. The hands were trembling.

His brows jerked together nervously. "And--and--Alice?" The question was almost whispered.

Melicent could feel his rising tension. He was being told for the first time of the grim horror which was even then on his heels. Hannah answered. "Alice's message was,

'Day's Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates.'"

"Good God! Why wasn't I told?"

"We didn't dare write."

Theodore rose and paced back and forth on the bare floor of his living room. His eyes glittered. "You think, as Donald thought, that these apparent accidents--"

"Are murders." Hannah finished the word with clenched lips.

"Murders!"

"That's not all. Did you ever notice, Theodore, that the names of five of us--Everitt, Alice, Hannah, Daniel and Theodore--when properly arranged--also spell 'death'?"

"Good Lord! I never did."

Hannah spoke the next sentences with a small, steely voice. "Neither did I until I began to wonder about the reason for anyone sending these messages and the conception behind them. Daniel has died. Everitt. Alice. In that order. 'D' is dead, in other words, and

'E' and 'A'--"

Suddenly Theodore whirled around. "And I'm 'T!' Is that what you are trying to tell me, Hannah?"

"That is why we came here."

For a moment fright held him rigid. Then a slow smile appeared on his face. It was not a happy smile, but it was one of inward comfort. "If there were murders and there is a murderer, I shall escape."

"We came to help you."

"It's not that." He glanced at them in turn. "It's something else. Something surer.

Something higher."

"What do you mean?"

Theodore answered his sister. "It's very simple. My horoscope. My stars say that I shall die peacefully."

"What!"

The old man sat down in his chair again and sighed with relief. "For a moment I was frightened. Only for a moment."

"You don't mean to tell me, Theodore Cornwall, that you put any faith in--in horoscopes?"

"My dear sister, you don't know what you're talking about. I put absolute faith in them."

"Ridiculous!"

He drew into himself. "Very well. Call it ridiculous. I shan't attempt to show you the relation of the stars to the life of the individual. Not at all. But from my own knowledge of the stars and through the interpretation of persons gifted in reading them, I have found a perfect way of conducting my life. Consider the present moment. You come to me trembling with fear. You tell me an alarming story of death messages sent to my two brothers and my sister. But my answer is ready for you. You inform me that because my name begins with 'T' a murderer is already on my trail. I can afford to laugh. I know that the stars do not lie and I know the stars. I am not to be murdered. And that's all I have to say. I'm not afraid."

"You won't take any further steps to protect yourself?"

"I shall not."

Hannah stared at her brother with a strange, hard expression, as if she half doubted that he was in his right mind. At last she shrugged. "Very well. But if you won't be careful on your own account, possibly you will on mine. After you are killed, I am to be killed. And while you live, I am safe. For my sake--"

"My dear Hannah. I know my fate. I have read my stars. You can scarcely expect me to wear bullet-proof vests to satisfy the neurotic worries of an imaginative sister when I know I will never die of violence."

"Imaginative? Perhaps I am. But not superstitious."

"Are you inferring that I am superstitious?"

"I should think," his sister replied, "that with all your association with medicine and science you'd know enough not to pay any attention to astrology."

"The greatest science of them all," Theodore answered stiffly. "And now you must excuse me. My butler will show you your various rooms. He will take care of any needs you have. I usually take a nap at this time. I'll see you at the dinner table."

When he had left the room Miss Cornwall spoke to Melicent and Donald. "The old fool!" Then her dread mastered her vexation. "If he won't take care of himself, we must look out for him. We must. He's 'T.' Then I come."

"Yes, Auntie," Donald answered gently. "Don't worry.

I'll watch over him. But meanwhile--wouldn't you like me to take you to your room? You must be tired."

"I am tired."

When Donald returned he found Melicent standing at one of the front windows looking out over New York City. She turned to him quickly, and smiled a little. He was so competent, so calm and reassuring.

"Are you tired, too?" he asked.

"No."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"New York's your home, isn't it? I suppose it makes you feel badly to be here and a sort of prisoner. If you want, I'll see if my aunt won't let you have a little time off so that you could get around and see some of your friends."

For a moment Melicent's heart stopped. Why shouldn't she accept that offer? Not to see her friends but to go to the police with her strange story? Then she changed her mind.

"Thanks. I'll be all right."

He stood beside her and they looked out the window together. "I want to ask you something."

"Yes?" Melicent said.

"Personal."

"I won't promise to answer."

"Only if you want to. Do you miss Granger?"

"Miss him? Of course I do."

"How do you miss him?"

"How?" she repeated. "I mean, were you at all in love with him?"

The question shocked her almost to laughter. She hesitated in order that she might answer as gravely as he had asked. "Of course not!"

"That's a load off my mind. Really. But you do miss him; in what way?"

"Well," replied Melicent, considering. "We came on the job together; I liked him; he was always on the lookout for me, I felt."

"On the lookout?"

"To help me, if I needed it."

"Oh."

"And he was the only outsider on the inside, except myself."

"I see," said Donald. "And I don't mind your missing him that way. Obviously, he was in love with you; how could he help being? But as you're not in love with him, are you with me?"

She looked up at him, her dark eyes mocking his serious attentiveness. "Briefly, no."

"I was afraid you weren't. Could you be?"

"How am I to tell?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But try. For instance, you might suggest just what one ought to do to attract your attention and your favor. Orchids every day? Candy?

I'm handicapped in my suit by circumstance. But I'm very nice. Good disposition. High I.

Q. Educated. Have a considerable fortune inherited from my father's share of the Cornwall annual interest on the estate. I won't try to hide the fact that I'm connected with one of the least sensible families on earth--I couldn't. But personally--I'm very nice."

She nodded. "I think you are."

"You do!"

"I do!"

He bent down and kissed her quickly on the top of the head.

She looked up at him; his entire face was radiant. He backed away, gazing at her, unable to keep his eyes from her; near the door, he waved at her and vanished from the room. It was several minutes before the naturalness and pleasantness of the interlude faded from Melicent's mind. The smile fled with the fading.

When Donald came in again, her mood had changed. He neither mentioned nor apologized for the kiss; they began to discuss together practical plans. If Theodore Cornwall actually did not mean to take precautions against murder, what would they do?

Were they surely right that murder must have been done, even in the fog? The engrossing, elusive enigma of the Cornwall fates engaged them.

Finally, Melicent went to Miss Cornwall's room where she found the old lady seated on the floor beside the tin box which had been her chief care when Blackcroft burned and which had accompanied her everywhere since.

For the first time, Melicent saw it open. It was the size of a small trunk and was filled, Melicent judged, with letters tied in packets, with old photographs and small books that looked like diaries. Miss Cornwall had untied a couple of the packets of letters and evidently was searching for some particular one. She paid no attention to Melicent's presence after she saw who it was that entered. Soon she located her quarry; for she read and reread one page with considerable satisfaction, tied up the other letters, returned them to the box and locked it.

"Now," she announced, "I am ready for dinner."

She so plainly felt triumphant over the surprise she had prepared for someone at the table, that Melicent was distinctly disappointed when the meal began and progressed without incident.

They were four at the table, Hannah, Theodore, Donald and Melicent. Lydia was not present; for Ahdi Vado had arrived and, after her restorative treatment, she had remained in her rooms and he dined with her.

The four in the dining room had reached the dessert when Hannah brought up the subject of horoscope again.

"I'd like to have mine cast," she said.

Theodore nodded. "You should." He took a sip of the decaffined substitute for coffee which he habitually drank. "I have a fresh one made every year."

"Really? Does it come out?"

"Invariably. It's scientific."

Hannah nodded. "Based on what?"

His health systems and his astrology were the two subjects upon which Theodore could talk glibly. He launched into the latter. "Based on many things. The date and hour and place of your birth, particularly. I have in recent years consulted Priscilla Loring.

You've undoubtedly heard of her. She's an infallible astrologist. If you'd like to have your horoscope read, she can do it. You'd do as I did. Go to her. I tell her I was born on the eighteenth of February at four-fifteen A.M. in 1864--"

Melicent saw Hannah Cornwall's face stiffen momentarily and she interrupted her brother. "Is that what you told this Priscilla Loring and the others?"

He nodded. "That's my birthday and hour. You'd give your own, of course. As accurately as possible. The first promise of my stars has been that if I live carefully and quietly I shall die peacefully in the middle of my eighties. The second--"

His sister interrupted. "You say your horoscope is based on the fact that you were born on February eighteenth?"

"Of course."

"Did you ever know you weren't?"

Melicent felt her nerves tingling. She saw Donald return his cup untasted to its saucer. A spoon dropped from Theodore Cornwall's hand.

"What do you mean?"

Hannah smiled coldly. "I suspected that you were never told. Funny. All these years you've had faith in a horoscope that wasn't even based on the right birthday."

Theodore reached across the table and gripped his sister's arm. His voice was quavering. "Don't trifle with me! What do you mean? What do you know about my birthday?"

"You celebrate it on the same day as father's; you always did."

"Yes; yes; of course."

Hannah shook her head. "But the day isn't right; it never was. No one ever told you, for it didn't seem to make any possible difference. But you weren't born on the eighteenth but on the seventeenth."

"What are you saying to me? How do you know?"

"Mother told me once. She just happened to mention it to me, years ago; a secret of no real importance, it seemed. It happened this way. Our father had to be away when you were born. You were expected, of course; and it seemed that you might be born on his birthday. He went out of town hoping that; the idea pleased him. So Mother hoped it, too. But you were born at four-fifteen in the afternoon of the day before. To please Father, Mother pretended you were born twelve hours later to bring it upon his birthday; she had everyone else say so; and it was started that way and the eighteenth has always been your birthday--but it never really was."

If Hannah Cornwall had meant to prepare a shock for her brother Theodore, she succeeded beyond any possible expectation. He stood up slowly as she talked. His eyes protruded. His lips dried and his tongue circled them. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

None of the others in the room could have realized what it meant to him, emotionally, to have the beliefs and hopes upon which he had based his life suddenly broken below him.

"Hannah," he whispered, scarcely able to speak. "You know this? You know of what you speak? Take thought and, if you ever loved me, tell me the truth and that only.

You say I was born on the day before--the day before--not the day after the day we have always thought."

"The day before," repeated Hannah sternly. "Twelve hours exactly before the hour always given for your birth."

"Then that changes everything! That may kill me--kill me horribly. Do you understand? For Priscilla Loring--everyone--every astrologer who I have ever consulted has told me it is most fortunate that my birth fell on the day it did and not on the day before because it was only a few hours before my birth--that is, before the time I always gave as my hour of birth--that the aspect of the heavens changed from malign to beneficent. So how do you know this, Hannah Cornwall? How do you know this--by hearsay only or by your memory which might have failed you? How do you know--how can I know now this circumstance which means more than everything else in the world to me?"

Melicent watching Hannah saw her hand trembling. The old woman was sorry, she must be sorry now for this terrible effect of her announcement; yet she proceeded.

She produced from her dress the, letter out of the old tin box.

"Our mother, Theodore," Hannah said, "wrote everything that happened in our family to her sister Emily. When our mother died, Aunt Emily gave her letters to me for our family record which I have always kept. It occurred to me to-day that our mother would have written of the circumstances of your birth to Aunt Emily, so I looked through the letters and I found that she did." And Hannah extended to her brother a sheet of faded handwriting.

He seized it and gripped it before him while he read, and then tearing the page apart, he stared aghast at his sister.

"So I am not to die peacefully in bed after fifteen or twenty more years. I am not to—to--Oh, how about me now? How about me now, I say? I'm T, am I? And D and E

and A are gone; killed; murdered! Now I'm T; it's come up to me. They'll come to me with their meaningless five-word messages. And I'm not to die peacefully in bed after twenty more safe, quiet years. My stars don't say so! My stars have ceased to say so!

They were never my stars that said it!

"I'm T and they've reached me; and my stars can't save me! Can't save me--"

His eyes rolled. He fainted across the table.

CHAPTER IX

DONALD jumped from his chair and gained the side of his uncle. He picked up the old man in his arms and carried him into the living room where he laid him down on a sofa. Melicent followed with a glass of water and a napkin, and while Donald moistened the lips of the old man, she slapped his hands and soon he began to revive.

Hannah came to the door. She seemed to have retained a grim sense of proportion.

"He's all right, isn't he?" she inquired.

"Soon will be," assured Donald.

"Something had to be done to bring him to his senses. He has been a perfect fool to depend on horoscopes as he has. And imagine--all the time they were based on the wrong day."

Donald wet the napkin again and applied it to his uncle's forehead. Theodore Cornwall drew in a tremulous breath.

A moment later, he opened his eyes. He was trembling and weak. "I fainted, did I? Please excuse me. It was the tremendous shock of learning that the facts upon which I had placed my reliance for all these years--"

Donald reassured him. "It's all right, Uncle. We can understand it. Just lie still.

You don't have to explain."

Melicent moved away from the sofa and sat down in a chair. Theodore Cornwall breathed deeply several times, and Hannah took another chair. It was some minutes before the old man sat up on the couch. He made a nervous effort to compose himself but it was plain that he was battling with the fearful implications of the new fact which had caused him to faint.

The two parts of the torn page of the letter, in which his mother had mentioned the circumstances of his birth, had fallen from his fingers when he lost consciousness; now he motioned that he desired them; and Donald picked them up and handed them to him. They all watched him as he reread the handwriting.

At last he looked up at his sister.

"There seems to be no doubt of it, Hannah."

"There is none, Theodore."

"I recognize Mother's writing. There could have been no possible reason for her stating these facts to her sister, unless they occurred. Yet--yet all these years I have arranged my life to suit the stars of another man. My fates have never fitted myself. And who knows now what my fate may be?" His voice took on a quality of passionate indignation. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"If I had realized the results of your ridiculous superstition, I would have," his sister replied. "But until this came upon us all, it never seemed to make any difference whether you went by the right stars or the wrong. It seemed to me totally absurd."

The man on the couch made a feeble gesture with his hand. "Call it absurd if you like. This is no time for argument. I know what I know and I must live my life by my knowledge. There is now only one thing to do--one thing left for me to do and I must be about it immediately."

Hannah spoke again, although Donald tried to make signs to her not to disturb Theodore any further. "Certainly, there is only one thing left to do. Get together all the horoscopes you have ever had cast, bum them up, forget them--and begin taking rational, reasoned safeguards against the threat that hangs over us."

"You told me," Theodore continued without reference to her remark, "that three messages have been sent to my brothers and sister, three messages that spelled death.

You told me that their names began with D, E and A, and mine begins with T. The old horoscope said I would live to be eighty. What will the new one say?"

"Surely you're not going to have another horoscope read?"

"To-night," Theodore Cornwall replied firmly. "Immediately. This one, based on the true day and hour of my birth, will tell me what to do."

Resolution coupled with anxiety had brought back some of his strength. He rose and left the room. From the hall they heard his voice calling a telephone number and asking urgently for Miss Priscilla Loring. He then identified himself and they heard his anxious explanation of his emergency. Apparently Miss Loring was greatly excited about these things and they could detect relief in Theodore Cornwall's voice when he told her to come over at once.

Hannah Cornwall had locked herself in her room before the astrologist arrived. It was her gesture of protest. But both Donald and Melicent waited to meet Miss Loring.

She was a middle-aged woman. She wore a dress which was very nearly a costume, long and flowing and of the shade known as midnight blue. The bodice of the dress, however, fitted tightly over her more than ample bosom and at the shoulders it became a sort of décolleté, exposing fat, short, pasty white arms. Her eyes were very dark and the pupils were so widely extended that one would have thought the phenomenon had been produced by the application of belladonna. Her hair was dark, copious and loosely piled on top of her head. She had a voice which she had obviously cultivated to a pitch lower than normal.

Theodore Cornwall was impatient to retire for the reading of his new horoscope immediately after he had introduced Melicent and Donald to Miss Loring but he was further delayed by Ahdi Vado who came deferentially into the room.

The Hindu gave no sign of having overheard any of the disturbance in this end of the apartment. He announced in his calm, resonant voice:

"The Grand Duchess Strang wishes me to say that she will not appear to bid you a formal good-night, as she is very tired."

It was the custom of the Hindu always to refer to Lydia Cornwall as "The Grand Duchess," although in the 1890's the accuracy of that title had been a subject of considerable diplomatic debate. Whenever Melicent heard the title she was reminded of the Grand Duke who, aside from Donald's father, was the only relative of the Cornwall family she had not now met.

Theodore wanted to dispose of Ahdi Vado quickly and said to him merely, "All right."

But Priscilla Loring had fastened her eyes on the slight, dark-skinned man. "Who is this person ?"

Donald explained. "He is my Aunt Lydia's spiritual adviser."

A rapturous expression appeared on the face of the astrologer. "Ah-ah! A mystic!"

Ahdi Vado bowed. "In my humble way I serve the great soul of nature."

"Wonderful!" Priscilla Loring murmured. "Divine! You must become my friend. I must talk to you." She walked across the room with a tread that was light for a woman of her size and held out her right hand. Ahdi Vado took it and bowed. With her left hand Priscilla Loring made a mystic design in the air.

Theodore interrupted them. "Miss Loring, please. If you have any respect for my agony--"

She turned toward him. "Lead me," she said, "and we will convene with the secrets of the stars."

They left the room. Ahdi Vado went back to the suite occupied by Lydia Cornwall and her maid. Donald walked once or twice across the floor and stopped in front of Melicent. "What do you think of that?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't know."

"I know what you think of it and I'll tell you what you think of it. You think it is nutty, plain nutty. You think that Lydia is a fool to carry that Hindu with her baggage all over the world, and you think that Uncle Theodore is an idiot to be taken in by a pompous figure like this Loring creature. That's what you think."

"Well," Melicent answered, "I can't make them out."

"You mean you can't make out whether or not all this astrology and this yogi stuff is on the level or whether it's a cover for something else? Neither can I."

Donald walked back and forth in the room again. "Three of the generation are gone-have been killed; three remain. They are all under this roof. If only one of my aunts and uncles became impatient to inherit the whole fortune of the family and made some move to hasten the deaths of the others, it would seem that it must be one of the remaining three"--One of the three here with us now. Which is the one, would you say?"

Melicent shuddered. "I couldn't think of accusing any one of them."

Donald rubbed a hand across his head so that his red hair was pushed forward and wholly disheveled.

"Nor can I; but I must not let sentiment and natural feeling confuse me. I go over and over everything that's happened. I think about the terrible days in Guiana when I was trying to decide if I'd be justified in having my father's body examined. I think about the days afterwards when I found out that he might have been poisoned. Then I think over Uncle Everitt dying up there in Connecticut, and Aunt Alice--and the messages they all received. Any one murder might have a special, individual motive; but there is only one possible motive for the killing of the three--to hasten the family inheritance into the hands of Uncle Theodore or Aunt Lydia or Aunt Hannah." He paced the floor silently for a moment.

"Of course, the hastening might be done by intimates of one of three who are left.

For instance, if Aunt Lydia inherited the money, the Grand Duke and his party would be pleased--to put it mildly; and I wouldn't put it past Ahdi Vado to look out for himself."

"Nor I," agreed Melicent.

"Then of course Professor Coleman has a very highly special interest in seeing that Aunt Hannah is the last survivor; would you put it past him?"

Melicent had to smile; she couldn't help it, as she recollected the timid, meticulous scholar who was Miss Cornwall's favorite. "I'm afraid I'd have to," she said.

"So would I."

"That brings us to Uncle Theodore--and Miss Priscilla Loring, whose precise place in his affairs I failed to appreciate until to-night. What do you think from what you have seen, of her hold on him?"

"She certainly seems to have a hold on him."

"She has him jumping through hoops for her and eating out of her hand. And did the lady impress you as stupid?"

"Far from it," said Melicent.

"Nor me. She is wholly and completely aware, I should say, of what would happen if Uncle Theodore proves to be the last survivor. Some of the millions undoubtedly would go to his grandiose schemes; but there would be many, many more besides for Priscilla Loring; and she wouldn't have to wait for him to leave it to her. If he gets it, Priscilla is fixed, I would say."

"Yet I can't," said Melicent, "think of the killings in connection with her."

"Do you suppose," said Donald, "she has no friends? What a stake for them to work for! Two hundred millions largely at Mistress Loring's mercy, if Uncle Theodore is the one who inherits."

"But if we go by the order D-E-A-T," objected Melicent, "he is the next one to die."

"I know it; but will they go on in that sequence? Mightn't it be a sequence which someone started and clung to for a while and then would suddenly abandon? For instance suppose it is somebody interested in seeing the money come to Uncle Theodore that decided to hurry the hand of fate; suppose he noticed that five of the family name spelled

'death.' That might have suggested to him an order for killing the first three and it might also have suggested to him the idea of the five-word messages which he sent for a warning--or for whatever purpose they were sent--but it would not oblige him to kill Uncle Theodore next. He could skip Theodore and end either of the others more easily because they would be expecting T to be next."

"I see. You mean the person who planned it all might be counting now that your Aunt Hannah and especially your Aunt Lydia are off guard because, following the sequence, Theodore would be fourth."

Donald nodded. "Exactly; I don't say it's so but it is a possibility; and somebody has to consider every possibility. Uncle Theodore wasn't around when any of my family died nor was Priscilla Loring; but someone, who could profit from her power over Uncle Theodore, might have been. Ahdi Vado was not around-but someone else connected with Aunt Lydia might have been. Aunt Hannah was in the house when Uncle Everitt died; and Aunt Hannah went suddenly and for no sufficient reason to Brussels the night the death mist came down the Dornrey River. Why did she do that? What made her go?

"She wasn't in Dutch Guiana when my father died; of course she might have sent somebody there to do what is done. However; we've no evidence of that; only that my father was poisoned. I was there. So take me, Melicent. How about me? Have you ever counted up the things against me?"

She returned his level gaze with one equally straightforward. She hoped that he would not hesitate after that question but he was waiting for her answer.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I've counted them up."

He nodded his head. "Good girl. They make quite a damning array, don't they?

First, I alone of my family was present when my father died. I arrived mysteriously in Connecticut just after Uncle Everitt's electrocution. I was nearby at the time and no one was with me. You saw me that night in the burning room where you were looking at the prints in the dust. I went with Aunt Hannah to Brussels on the night of the mist and so I escaped it. In other words, of all the people connected with the progressive assassination of the Cornwalls, I alone have been in the--vicinity just before each death. So that has impressed you also?"

"Yes," admitted Melicent.

"It has certainly impressed me, Melicent."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, it is certainly hard to explain."

"Can you explain it?"

He looked at her with the same level gaze. "No."

"Of course your father's death," said Melicent now, "you'd not have to explain. No one could accuse you of that. You had every possible motive in wanting him to live."

"Thank you for so much; but anyone could accuse me of the other murders. May I ask what would be my motive since, with my father dead, I could no longer inherit? Have you thought that out, too?"

Melicent still looked straight into his eyes and she did not speak accusingly but rather with abstract speculation. "Yes; I've thought that out, too. Your father had died--

from a natural cause. He was one of the youngest and he had been in the best health; you had had every hope and expectation that he would be the longest to live. But now he was dead and you had lost, by his death, your chance at the fortune.

"You were down there in that hot country alone and your mind began to move.

Call your father's death a murder, your mind might say; turn suspicion from yourself in advance by accusing someone unknown of murdering your father-and then kill all the rest."

"But why--to what purpose for myself?"

"So as finally to break the will and come into your share of the fortune for yourself. As long as any of the brothers and sisters live, the will could hardly be broken; it is plain and explicit; the money goes from one to another in the family as long as any of the brothers and sisters live; but when the last one dies, a new will is made; and that, you figured, might be broken--especially if the most eccentric of your uncles and aunts was the last to live. The courts again and again have broken wills leaving huge fortunes to crazy projects and bestowed the money on living relatives. You have only cousins and could claim at least a fourth; and fifty millions would be a worth while stake--even for you."

"Thank you again," acknowledged Donald coolly. "Then by that reasoning, you must logically include Lester and his sister among the suspects, too."

"Logically," nodded Melicent, "I do."

"But--illogically?"

The coolness was gone from him; the challenge of warmth was in his eyes again, in the curve of his lips and inwardly she melted before him.

"Illogically," murmured Melicent, "you're--you."

"Louder; I didn't hear it."

"I can't say it again."

"If it's anything you can't say again, you must!"

He had come close to her, so that now he could have heard; but he did not rudely seize her. He never did. Would he ever? Did she want him to? Did he feel that she was preventing him? What did she want of him? What had he become to her?

She flushed with confusion; and now the opening of a door aided her.

They had almost forgotten, both of them, that Theodore Cornwall had retired temporarily only to have his new horoscope cast by Priscilla Loring. The sound of the latch reminded them of that fact and of the overwhelming importance he attached to the horoscope.

Donald and Melicent swung away from each other and to him.

Theodore Cornwall looked ten years older than he had when he had gone into the room with Priscilla Loring. The leathery texture of the skin of senescence had replaced his healthy sveldtness. His face was blotchy and his mouth was drawn back mechanically so that his teeth were visible through it. He wore a species of grin. Nothing could have told more accurately the effect of his new horoscope upon him. And yet the grin itself had been caused by the faint hope given him by the prophetess.

He sat down in a chair and put his hands on its arms. Miss Loring swept into the room behind him and also took a chair. Donald, in spite of the appearance of his uncle, attempted to be casual. "Well, what did the stars say?"

The head of the old man turned mechanically toward his nephew. "There's still a chance left for me, Donald."

"Of course there is, uncle. There's always a chance. You shouldn't get so worked up."

Miss Loring laughed without mirth and said in the voice of a sibyl, "You were quite right, young man. It would be futility itself to pit one's emotions against destiny."

Donald looked at her with scorn. "I don't know about that, either. Speaking as an old pitter of emotions against destiny--"

"I'd prefer a less flippant attitude, Donald," Theodore Cornwall said slowly. "I've had a great shock. Miss Loring has just read my horoscope. For forty years I've thought that if I lived sensibly my life would be long and secure. Now, because of the idiotic sentimentality of my mother, I find I have been betrayed. I have been buoyed up by false hope."

"Well," Donald replied, "what do the stars say?"

Priscilla Loring answered for her client. "The stars which govern the life of man, when consulted on the basis of the true birth of your uncle are indefinite on the subject of his exact end. They tell him, however, what is the best course for him now to pursue.

They tell him that instead of pursuing a cautious course throughout his life he should, in order to be happy and to live long, pursue a bold course. He should take the conduct of himself into his own hands. He should do and dare. The false prophecy indicated that he should have been a recluse, as he has been all these years. The true prophecy shows that he should have lived the life of daring. He should have gone alone into strange corners of the world. He should have traveled. He should have dared all. He should have held his life at a small premium, and staked it gayly. The stars say that by such a course he would have been better protected against the black hand of doom than by all--this--" She waved at the hospital-like living room in which they sat.

A sound almost like a groan escaped Theodore Cornwall. "When I think what I have missed locked up here for three decades in silence and austere solitude; when I could have spent my time forcing my way across ice-bound frontiers, or seeking romance in some locked city high in the Himalayas; when I think of the sacrifice I have made to be calm, to be patient, to be cautious. I could have explored the Poles, flown the seas and won acclaim throughout the world."

Donald interrupted him. "You should never have had your horoscope read in the first place."

Theodore Cornwall did not take the trouble to reply to that. "All my life I have been a coward to discover, at the end, that I can save myself now only by being what I have never been--bold and daring. And will that save me?" he appealed to Priscilla Loring. "Can you promise that will save me?"

"The stars," she replied, "promise nothing. You know that well," she rebuked him almost as a child. "They only indicate tendencies. The bold course will have a tendency to save you," she repeated patiently. "The bold course." She looked about at the others, bowed, said her good-nights and departed.

Theodore, however, followed her to the door for some last few words of comfort and again Donald and Melicent were alone.

"Well, what do you make of that horoscope?" demanded Donald, frankly puzzled.

"It surprised me," admitted Melicent.

"And me. It hardly fits into a theory that she is bent upon his survival--at least until the rest of the family is finished. What I expected was more and more precautions; instead, we get the bolder course."

Theodore returned to them, made a few formal remarks which betrayed that his attention was far away and immediately went to his room.

It was after nine o'clock and Melicent knew that, if she did not retire presently, Miss Cornwall would send for her. She had already discovered that the arrangements in Theodore Cornwall's abode were similar to those which Hannah Cornwall had elsewhere.

Her room adjoined the room of Hannah and they had already made arrangements for their habitual exchange.

"Can Uncle Theodore suddenly change himself now?" Donald projected aloud. "If he does, how will he go about it and what will happen? I tell you, I can't make that woman out, unless she's sincere; I mean, unless she's sold on her looney horoscopes herself and this is what she thought the stars said to her; and so she passed it on to him.

But how does a person like Uncle Theodore suddenly make himself reckless and bold?"

Melicent held out her hand which Donald grasped and suddenly carried to his lips: "Good night. Thank you for your instant of illogicability. I'll never forget it!"

Melicent awoke in the morning to the sound of hammering so close that it was distinct above the city noises. It came through the window and, when she looked out, she saw that it originated upon the opposite roof, where a number of men were hastily erecting the skeleton of a wood and metal structure.

Miss Cornwall opened the door from the room which was, theoretically, Melicent's. She was dressed and evidently had been up some time for she complained.

"Those men began that nearly an hour ago; what do you suppose they're doing?"

"Putting up an electrical sign," suggested Melicent.

"What good would an electrical sign be upon that roof? It would be invisible from the street."

"But there are hundreds of thousands of people who live above the streets in the high buildings."

"I don't like it," declared Hannah, nervously. "It is directly opposite Theodore's windows. I don't like it. They came long before ordinary working time and are hurrying so."

Her tone was so vigorous that it was plain that she felt far more than a mere annoyance. "It can't actually harm anyone, Miss Cornwall," Melicent said, mildly, and she exchanged into the other room where she dressed, leaving Miss Cornwall to watch the progress of the sign.

Breakfast was attended by Lydia and Ahdi Vado, Hannah, Donald and Melicent and Theodore who distinguished the meal by discussing grandly various plans of procedure for himself personally.

He had swung, in imagination, to extreme enterprise which Hannah did not compliment with any comment at all.

She had learned how her purpose to shock Theodore into approved precaution for himself had been turned to the very opposite by the new horoscope and she was more moody and silent than ever as Theodore, hypnotized by the grandeur of his dreams of boldness, had become almost gay.

"What in the world can be the object of the sign they're putting up opposite your windows, Theodore?" she complained of it again.

"Seems to be an advertisement," replied Theodore complacently. "No place for it; but soon enough they'll find it out."

"What would anyone advertise there?"

"We'll soon enough see. And now, if I went to China--" He was off again in the expeditions of his mind.

"China," observed Ahdi Vado, "dwells in the depths of contemplation, indifferent to the ephemerial ripples on the surface of human affairs--such as prosperity, business triumph, even wars. Her essential composure is too profound to be disturbed by--"

Hannah interrupted with intentional rudeness. "Lydia, you are not encouraging Theodore in this new madness for adventure?"

"No," denied Lydia. "Of course not."

"Mr. Reese is calling this morning," announced Hannah.

"I never liked that lawyer," rejoined Theodore. "No one should know so much as he does of our affairs. He has made himself altogether too--necessary. I dislike and distrust him."

"Fool," said Hannah, under her breath and, evidently, not referring to the lawyer.

Shortly after breakfast, Mr. Reese did arrive to be ignored, almost, by Theodore, but Lydia had something to say to him privately, and Hannah took him for a long conference in her room.

After a while, Melicent was called in.

"Mr. Reese remains disturbed that I dismissed Granger," began Miss Cornwall.

"But we have got on quite as well without him as with him, have we not?"

Melicent had to agree to that.

"If you have anything to talk over with Mr. Reese, I will leave you," Hannah offered but, after she arose, she delayed at the window.

"Hats !" she said, staring at the growing sign. "They are advertising hats up here!

They are putting in the word nearest the roof. It is 'hats.'' She left the room.

"I asked for this moment with you," explained Mr. Reese, as soon as the door was closed, "to learn from you without reservation how things have gone since I've seen you."

"One more of the family is gone," returned Melicent, "as of course, you know."

"But it can hardly be considered that a human agency carried off Alice Wilbur."

"Did Miss Cornwall tell you of the message Mrs. Wilbur received just before the fog?"

"Yes, she has told me all. At least, she has assured me it is all. . . . It is plain," he went on after a moment, "that we are in very deep waters. I have talked also with her sister Lydia and at weak moments I feel myself inclining to her explanation of the affairs.

That is, that no one is really causing these deaths; that they are merely occurring in the resistless march of human fates and that someone, foreseeing the path, sends the warnings. But that, I say, suffices the mind only at its most indulgent moments. There is certainly plan and purpose proceeding about these people."

"Mr. Reese, why in God's name don't you go to the police ?"

"Because Alice Wilbur, with sixty other old people, died in the Belgian fog? They would laugh at me. I have been privately investigating the death of Everitt Cornwall, as you know; I have employed the most skillful of the confidential detective services and have turned up nothing--absolutely nothing. I cannot satisfy myself even as to whom I ought to suspect. Can you?"

"No," confessed Melicent. "Just everybody and nobody."

Work on the sign, which increasingly annoyed Hannah, progressed. It provoked her particularly because, as the men laid on the framework the outlines of the design later to be illuminated, the letters were not legible to her. The characters were large enough and near enough but they crossed and interfered with each other after the manner of signs, seen in daytime, which are prepared to flash not a single but two or three legends at night. Moreover, it seemed to Miss Cornwall, who let the thing get on her mind, that the workmen, after rushing the first part of the work, deliberately dallied over the finishing touches which were still incomplete when dusk came. She remained sure of the lowest word only--"Hats."

Theodore had employed the day in no actual, physical expedition; his determination for daring prevailed in the form of plan, only. He had received another visit from Priscilla Loring who, from further study of her charts, seemed to have found elaboration of the stars' intentions for Theodore which she explained to him privately; but she was gone again before dark and Theodore, having worn out the excitement of his stimulated imagination, was once more depressed.

Donald, who had been out most of the day, had returned and was talking placatingly to his uncle. Melicent and Donald and Theodore were alone in the living room when, directly opposite their windows, the electric sign came "on."

It blazed in white and red lights; and despite the fact that the living room of the apartment was well illuminated, the glare from the sign shone brightly through the windows.

"What a confounded nuisance!" Theodore exclaimed, starting up. "Hannah was right for once in her life. It's a nuisance--a nuisance !"

He stood up and walked to the window. The others followed him casually and together looked out. The sign was bounded by a moving red arrow which shot around the border and outlined the legend to appear. As this flashed on, Melicent noticed that the sign contained five words.

Five words had preyed upon her mind for so many weeks that the electric sign was not the first brief collection of syllables which she had read and counted and the initials of which she had automatically arranged in her mind.

DAVIS, EVANS

and

TAYLOR,

HATS.

The sign flashed and went out; the arrow repeated its run around the border and the sign flashed again. The same words but arranged now in a straight perpendicular: DAVIS

EVANS

AND

TAYLOR,

HATS.

CHAPTER X

MELICENT stood in front of the window as rigid as stone. The cry of Theodore Cornwall, and Donald's voice came to her ear as sounds heard at a great distance. With both hands she clutched two of the leaves of the radiator, which was in front of her. She could feel blood withdrawing from her head. The electric sign went out; but instantly the red arrow reappeared and shot around the border and again, in huge white letters, except for the initials which were red, the five words flashed across the night: DAVIS, EVANS

and

TAYLOR,

HATS

Infinities of time ticked away. The others were silent; their voices had ceased.

Melicent was telling herself furiously that the whole affair of this sign was accident and her mind stubbornly replied that the sign was new, they had seen it erected to-day and that this was the first time it had been illuminated; it was directly across the street from Theodore Cornwall's windows; and Theodore was next in line to receive the fatal message of five words arranged so that their initials spelled--death.

"So that's it, you think! That's it!" said Theodore Cornwall's voice which Melicent now heard. He was not speaking to her, she realized; he was addressing Donald, as he had done a few moments before when she had heard his voice but did not know what he had said; or what Donald had said. But now she heard Donald's reply.

"Uncle, let's not get excited." Donald was struggling for calmness.

"But you're excited yourself!"

"I'm not."

"You are; and I know why. You think that's it--that it--the five words that have been killing off the family--has come to me !"

"No, uncle!"

"Then what's the matter with you, Donald?"

Melicent turned to them and as the glare from the sign blazed again in their faces, she saw that Theodore had good reason for his question, for Donald was more aghast than he. Not strange when you recalled that Donald had three times witnessed the consequences of such a message; Theodore had had the effects only told to him. Yet--if this was the fourth message--Theodore was the one now under sentence.

"Miss Waring! Melicent! What's the matter?" demanded Hannah Cornwall's voice.

They all spun about. Hannah Cornwall was standing in the doorway at the opposite end of the room; and at sight of her, Donald turned again toward the window and reached for the curtain cord; but his uncle caught his hand and stopped him.

"What do you want to do?" Theodore firmly demanded.

"Pull down the shade so she won't see."

"Leave it up," bid Theodore. "If we've seen it, why shouldn't she?"

Hannah Cornwall crossed the room; but in spite of the fact that she had fussed over the sign all day, its flashing light did not now engage her.

"Why are you two struggling?" she challenged her brother and her nephew. "Miss Waring, what is the matter here?"

Melicent swallowed and gained some muscular mastery of herself. Her first impulse was like Donald's when he moved to draw down the shade; she wanted to keep knowledge of the sign from Miss Cornwall; but it was impossible. She lifted her hand and pointed out the window.

"The sign, Miss Cornwall," she whispered. "The new electric sign; it's come on."

At last Hannah saw it. "Davis, Evans and Taylor, Hats," she read it in a whisper; and for her, to whom five-word messages had become hideous portends of death that was not afterwards delayed, there was no interval of doubt or wonder over the meaning. Yet her reaction under the circumstances was grim and surprising.

She had to say something; very probably (as Melicent later thought) she did not know what she said; she had to say something or become hysterical. At least, she held onto herself. She turned to her brother and said almost sweetly, "You were going to live to be eighty, Theodore?"

"Eh?" Theodore said. "What are you talking about?"

Hannah now did for Theodore what Melicent had done for her; she pointed to the sign across the street. "You were going to live to be eighty, Theodore. The five-word messages, about which we told you, were unimportant to you. The idea that we were all to be victims of murder was one to which you could afford to pay no attention as long as your fool horoscopes made you feel that you would be safe." She chuckled; otherwise, Melicent felt, she would have screamed. "Daniel might die, and Everitt and Alice, but as long as your horoscope comforted you, Theodore, you were safe. The message would never come to you. But now it has come--and where is your horoscope?" Again she laughed.

That laughter seemed to shake Melicent from her stupor. She suddenly came to life. "Don't, Miss Cornwall. Please don't," she implored.

Hannah laughed again and gazed out the window.

DAVIS

EVANS

AND

TAYLOR

HATS.

with the initial letter of each word in red, flashed across the sky of Manhattan. It threw an eerie light on the roof of the building upon which the sign had been constructed. Hannah began to laugh again. "It's for you, Theodore."

Melicent cried, "Don't."

Miss Cornwall ceased to laugh and shuddered almost uncontrollably; she seized Melicent's hand. "What can I do--what can anyone--anyone do--do ?"

Almost any reaction might have been expected from Theodore Cornwall. He was old. He had fainted when he had found that his horoscope was wrong. Everyone was subconsciously prepared to defend him against this new and diabolical blow, but he astonished them.

When he turned away from the window he had drawn back his shoulders and lifted his head. He was smiling. "This is what you have told me about. This is the kind of death-writing obituaries for the Cornwall family. You know"--and he sat down in a chair with almost youthful indolence--"you know, I have always been an adventurer at heart. I had tied myself down all my life and lived circumspectly. This is the first real thing that has ever happened to me. My new horoscope has told me to be bold, to be audacious. I think I am going to have some fun, some fun at last."

Melicent looked at him with wide incredulity; but when she turned her attention from Theodore to Donald, she saw that Donald, in spite of the paleness of his face, was grinning at his uncle.

"That's the old fight."

Theodore Cornwall leaped to his feet. "You don't know how much it means to me to throwaway this endless caution of mine. How I have hated the doctors and the diets and the electrical treatments. How I've hated myself. I've never had an enemy. Never experienced a danger, and now perhaps death itself is at my heels. Yesterday the very thought would have killed me. To-day it makes me almost gay."

"Theodore!" Hannah exclaimed with dismay.

He stood in front of his sister. "I'm through with it all. You, with your locks and keys and special servants. Lydia with her Hindu fakir. My new stars tell me to be daring.

I will dare--anything." He walked across to the window and shook his fist at the electric sign.

"He's mad," Hannah said.

"No, he isn't." Donald came to the side of his aunt. "He's not mad. He's waking up. I say, good for him. I say there's something of the old Cornwall spunk in him yet."

Theodore addressed the people in the room again. His voice was almost rapturous.

"We'll fight but we'll fight intelligently. In the first place, we'll find out if this sign is a coincidence. As soon as it's morning, we'll investigate it. They've been building it all day.

We'll find out who owns it and who is advertising those hats. If it's coincidence, then I'll still have the laugh on you, Hannah--"

"It isn't coincidence."

"--and if it isn't, then we'll fight. If Daniel and Everitt and Alice were murdered, I'll see their murderer in Hell myself. And always I will be bold; bold. I will fear nothing."

Hannah stood. She spoke with quiet severity. "Theodore, I believe you have lost your senses. Come, Miss Waring. We'll leave him in Donald's care. I have no wish to participate in this raving." She looked searchingly at her brother and said, "I hope that by morning you will be more self-possessed, if morning ever dawns for you."

With that closing sentence she left the room. Melicent glanced uncertainly at Donald, who nodded at her to follow, and then she, too, departed.

An hour later Melicent lay in the darkened bedroom which had been assigned to Miss Cornwall. She stared blindly into the night without either the hope or the thought of capturing sleep, although she knew that some time before dawn awoke the dull grumbling of the city she would sleep. In the Cornwall household one became able successfully to court slumber even under incredibly adverse conditions.

Theodore Cornwall had received his death sentence; and death, as she very well knew, did not delay after the delivery of the five-word message.

She tried to argue it away and to say that the sign which was still flashing outside the windows was an advertisement merely--simply a sign advertising hats; but each darkening and flashing of the sign only increased her nervous tension.

The partitions of the apartment were thin and she could hear the ceaseless confusion of small sounds made by Hannah Cornwall. She heard Miss Cornwall rise, move across the room and there was a knock on her door.

In spite of the fact that Melicent was reasonably sure that it was Miss Cornwall who had knocked, she sat up in bed and turned on the light with trembling fingers.

Melicent opened the door carefully and saw Miss Cornwall standing on the other side.

"Do you mind if I come in?"

"Not a bit," Melicent replied. "Do come in."

Miss Cornwall hugged a silk wrapper around herself and shivered. "That sign is driving me mad. . . . We're eighteen floors above the street, so I don't think anybody can molest us directly from the windows and all the doors are locked; yet--yet--" She paused and found a chair. "I could not stand being alone another instant. Do you realize what may happen to Theodore to-night?"

"Of course," said Melicent. "I've been thinking of that."

"What, do you suppose, will they do to him?"

"I've been imagining," confessed Melicent, "all sorts of things."

"Yet we could never hit it--neither you nor I. There was poison for Daniel; electrocution in the bath for Everitt--who would ever have dreamed of that?; and for Alice, the fog which no one could have foreseen. What--what do you suppose it will be for Theodore?"

Melicent shook her head.

"Or for me?" whispered Miss Cornwall. "Suppose now it is for me? It--that--that,"

she stared once toward the flashing sign but refrained from mentioning it as one avoids naming a terror, "that is nearly as opposite to my windows as it is to Theodore's; suppose now the five words are for me."

"Oh," cried Melicent, "I don't think so. They might as well be for your sister, Lydia."

"No; Lydia's windows are on the other side; and Ahdi Vado reassures her.

Sometimes I think it must be worth while to be a fool and believe what any sane mind must refuse. Lydia says it is merely an electric sign incapable of harm in itself unless we, in our minds, create the causes of our own confusion. She and Ahdi Vado are attempting, with their own minds, to counteract the terror in ours. . . . That sign is driving me mad; where is Theodore now, do you know?"

"I think he's still talking with Donald," Melicent said. "If you listen very closely, you can just barely catch the sound of voices. I expect that Donald will spend the night in his room."

"He should; he must. It is awful to wait for something which you cannot possibly be prepared for, anyway. Poison, which no one at first suspected; electrocution; fog. I was wondering if maybe I have been wrong about the police. Perhaps to-morrow we should call them; yet I can't bear to do it. I won't do it."

She gazed at her companion with a mingling of almost childish terror and unearthly resolution. "All the others died a few hours after they received their messages, half a day at most--that is, assuming Alice got her message the day she talked to you.

You think it was that day, don't you?"

"Yes, " said Melicent.

"So do I. That's why she suddenly had to talk to you. I wish they'd put that sign out; yet what good would that do? Alice burnt up her message; but she died that night.

What, do you suppose, can be coming to Theodore?"

"Then you do think it is coming to him and not to you?"

Hannah Cornwall wet her thin lips. "I think that more likely; yes; more likely Theodore--before me. I would call upon the police to-night, immediately, if I could believe they could do any good. But would all the police in New York have saved Everitt from dying in the bath or saved Alice from the fog?" She arose, quivering, and fought for resolution. "I did not mean to further disturb you but my nerves have been shrieking for hours. I will return to my room--your room--but how can I sleep to-night ?"

"Yet you must try to," urged Melicent.

"The sign does not come on again. Do you see? It stays dark."

"Yes," said Melicent. "They've put it out."

"They--they--they," whispered Miss Cornwall. "But what good does putting it out now do? Remember that Alice burned her message; but she died. Good night, child."

"Good night, Miss Cornwall."

She went through the doorway again; she closed the door firmly and Melicent heard the key turned on the other side.

Melicent switched out her light; and the sign on the opposite roof remained dark.

Melicent could see it vaguely as a bit of shadowy framework in the faint diffusion of the city glow over the roof. She sat looking out and, collecting her thoughts, she considered the strangely inert manner of the Cornwalls in meeting their collective doom. It was almost as if they had been trained from childhood to expect some such form of extinction, and as if that early breeding was now showing itself in a resignation that gave way only under the utmost stress. To be sure, there was Theodore at last determined to be bold--to live rashly.

Miss Cornwall's room became utterly silent; and the low resonance of men's voices from the other side had ceased. Melicent lay for an hour--for hours--wide awake, listening in a vigil which surpassed, in its tenseness, even that of her first night when she and Miss Cornwall had exchanged rooms.

She could lie still no longer. She arose and went to the window and looked out.

The sign across the street remained dark; and all over the city, the evening illumination was lessened; but the lights of night were sustained. And over all stood the stars.

Strange to look up at the stars over the city and see them the same stars as those which stood over the sea; but there they were--the Big Dipper and the Little Bear, Cassiopeia and the Chair. Stars and constellations so immense and far away that the mind could not encompass their distances but which-so Theodore Cornwall firmly believed--

concerned themselves with petty, individual, human fates and affairs. What vanity!

High overhead, there was a flash in the sky--a brilliant blue line of light which vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. Now, near the eastern horizon, another. Meteors; shooting stars; for the world, in its wanderings, was encountering bits of cosmic débris.

Last night and to-night, the papers said, we would be sweeping through the path of a comet which had been dissipated long ago but which left behind its scattered fragments.

Melicent forgot the stars. Footsteps approached her door; just outside, they stopped for a moment and then went on. A minute passed. The sound had disappeared.

Already her mind was playing tricks upon her and she was not positive that the sound she had heard had been footsteps, not sure that she had heard any connected series of sounds at all. A moment later she knew why she was doubting the footsteps; she was afraid to do what she thought she would do if she heard anything at all. Heretofore she had always entered into the Cornwalls' affairs after the alarm had been raised. Now she was determined to make a more intelligent effort. Every member of the family was in danger and every member gave the others some appearance of protection, but she knew that, in so far as Hannah Cornwall's generation was concerned, each person now living was primarily interested in himself. The sequence of deaths and the terror of the warnings had made Melicent desperate. They roused her to an unnatural courage.

She decided that she had heard footsteps and she rose from her bed. She took off Hannah Cornwall's nightcap and donned her own kimona. She crept across the room, took up the key of the hall door, which Miss Cornwall had placed on top of the bureau, and slowly turned the lock. The hall was pitch dark. With every sense vividly alert, she began to move through it, though she had neither weapon nor plan.

When she reached the middle of the hall, she began to be able to see faintly. The hall ended at the portière on the other side of which was the living room. She could hear the faint sounds of traffic in the street eighteen stories down; but now there was no sound within the walls of the apartment. The glow from the street made the room dimly visible.

There was no one in it; at least, nothing moved. Melicent's eyes ransacked every corner.

Now, though nothing moved, something clicked. A trigger cocked? The latch of a door? Melicent started; she jerked back behind the portieres and clutched them. She wanted to scream; but she stifled even the gasp of her breathing and stood tense, listening. No sound succeeded the click; when she separated away the noise from outside.

within the walls was absolute silence.

She realized, after a minute or two, that the elevator shaft lay in the direction from which the click had sounded. The elevator communicated almost directly into the living room. Theodore Cornwall's apartment occupied the entire top floor and there was no other reason for the elevator rising to this floor except to serve his apartment. There was, accordingly, only a very small space between the door from the living room and the elevator door.

Was there some one standing in that space now? Someone who had just come up in the elevator and who, after leaving the car, stood there without ringing or rapping?

The door was almost directly across the room from Melicent; and the longer she listened, hearing nothing, the more firmly the idea fastened itself in her mind. Some one had come up in the elevator and stepped out; the car, undoubtedly, had descended, leaving him there; but he neither rang nor rapped.

What was he waiting for? What was he doing? Working on the door? She strained her eyes for sign of the door opening and her ears for sound of a key in the lock. She saw and heard nothing. No one was there, boldly she told herself. To prove it, she'd cross the room and throw open the door. Or, would she? What madness would that be!

At least, she'd cross the room; but she found she could not even do that. She could creep around by way of the wall; for she began to do that, edging along, her back to the wall, her eyes jumping from object to object in the room, her hand beside her and pressed back against the wall for the strange and senseless reassurance of the feeling of something solid with her fingers.

She came to a table against the wall and she had to leave the wall to work her way round that. And as she was doing it, the door she was watching seemed to open. Was it opening? Was it an illusion? She could not see surely; and her foot caught on something.

She kicked to free it and a lamp beside her swayed. She had caught the cord on it; and the lamp toppled and crashed on the floor. It took all her attention for a second--three seconds--five seconds--who could say? For she had tried to catch it, but her hands missed it; and then she stared at it on the floor.

The door! No doubt now that it was partly open. No light came through it; the entry was absolutely black, but the door was not closed. But no one appeared; nobody seemed to be at it; there was not the slightest response, at the door, to the crash of the lamp. It was as if the thud on the floor had jarred the door open.

But Melicent knew that could not be.

Behind her, now, was a definite sound; behind her a door opened. It was Theodore Cornwall's door; and for an instant light from beyond his door shone down the hallway. Then the light was extinguished.

"Come back!" she heard the loud whisper in Donald's voice; but Theodore Cornwall did not heed him. Act boldly, his horoscope had warned him; and Melicent had seen how he was hypnotized by his stars.

"Stay back!" she cried out to halt him.

"Who's that?" he jerked out; and she knew that she had stopped him; but some one else passed him and approached her. Donald, she was sure, even before he spoke, demanding: "Where are you?"

"Don't turn on the light!" she cried. "There's some one here."

He found her, then, and seizing her, he thrust her behind him. With his left hand, he kept hold of her wrist; with his right, he presented a pistol to the room, while he whispered: "What did you see?"

"That door opening--I think."

"It doesn't seem open now."

"No. . . . Yes, it does, a little."

"I see," he agreed; and for a breathless second together they watched it. Then he asked: "What else was there?"

"Steps, I thought."

"Where?"

"Passing my door. I waited a minute--then I came out. Then there was a click--a distinct click over there; and the door opened."

"But that crash."

"That was me. I knocked the lamp off the table."

"Donald!" called Theodore Cornwall's voice from the hallway.

"Stay there, uncle, a minute," Donald replied, and of Melicent he begged: "Please go back to your room."

"What will you do?"

"I'll only turn on the light."

For answer, she reached along the wall and touched a switch and light flooded the room. No one else was in the room; except for the lamp which Melicent had overturned, there was no disorder. The door to the elevator entry was closed; and the entry was empty with the door to the shaft, on the other side, properly shut.

Theodore Cornwall, pistol in hand, assisted his nephew and Melicent in the examination which made all this certain.

"Nerves," he reassured Melicent. "Just nerves; that's all. Natural enough under the circumstances."

The three of them looked at one another--the two men in dressing gowns over pajamas, the girl in kimona.

"Just nerves," repeated Theodore. "We'd all best go back to bed."

Melicent went to her room, of which the door was still standing open while the others watched her down the lighted hall. The room was, of course, that which was assigned to Miss Cornwall and her return to it in sight of the others betrayed the fact that Miss Cornwall and she exchanged rooms; but Melicent never thought of this, as she went in and shut the door. She was thinking that, having left open the door, she had exposed Miss Cornwall to intrusion through her room; but she found that the door between the rooms was as she had left it. Nothing had disturbed Hannah Cornwall.

She returned to bed and sought again to summon sleep. She was lying with eyes closed but facing the window when a queer, sudden flash aroused her.

At least she was later aware of the flash; but probably it was the immediately ensuing shattering of glass and clang of metal which startled her up. The sounds came from Theodore Cornwall's room; and she heard cries--Donald's and Theodore's voices.

She ran into the hall and to Theodore's door. She could hear them in the room--

both of them; and through the door was a smell of scorching. Theodore was shouting orders to Donald and he was crying: "You stay away, uncle, leave it to me!"

Then there was the hissing of steam; the splash of water and more hissing, which finally ceased. At last, after Melicent had been calling and pounding for minutes it seemed, Donald opened the door to her.

"Come in," he invited. "Nobody's hurt."

"What happened? Donald, what happened?"

"Maybe you can tell us," said Donald, trying to smile at her but making a sorry failure of the attempt. "Maybe you can tell us."

CHAPTER XI

DONALD had covered his pajamas with dressing gown before he had opened the door; but Theodore Cornwall had given no thought to such formality. He stood gaunt and gray in his pajamas, staring down at a strange black object which lay in a pool of water on the floor.

He was physically uninjured, as was Donald; but gone was his calm of the hour earlier in the night when he had reassured Melicent and forgiven her her attack of

"nerves." He was excited and quivering under the stress of an emotion which was not exactly fright. That is, Melicent thought at first that he was tense with fright; then she saw it was not that.

After he looked up at her and nodded, he stared down again and bent over the strange black object on the floor.

It lay not only in the pool of water but upon a scorched spot.

"It was hot," said Theodore. "Red-hot; or white-hot. It came through that window and struck the radiator and fell to the floor. You see it set the floor afire."

"I see," said Melicent.

"We put out the fire and cooled it with water. It is hardly cool." He touched it and picked it up gingerly, and then replaced it on its spot on the floor. "You can plainly see its path."

He pointed to the window, the upper pane of which was shattered and the blind torn through. He pointed to the radiator against the inner wall opposite the window. It was painted tan to harmonize with the wall paper; and about halfway up the radiator, showed a black scar in the paint and the iron was broken.

"You see," Theodore repeated. "It came through the window, struck the radiator and fell to the floor--burning. You see how much water we had to pour on it to put it out."

"I see," said Melicent; and since he left the object on the floor, she bent over it, too.

Donald was beside her, watching her and his uncle and the object. He had said nothing since she had come into the room.

"It's really cool now," he told her, and he picked up the strange projectile. It was the size of two fists, irregularly shaped and pitted like slag but it was smooth, not sharp, at the edges of the indentations.

Melicent touched it in Don's hand; and it was cool, but not cold. The metal of the door knob, which she next touched for comparison, was cooler.

"What is it?" she asked, herself quivering a little.

"What does it look like to you?" Donald challenged her.

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," returned Donald bluntly. "You know what it looks like; and I do, too."

"It is perfectly plain what it is," announced Theodore proudly. Yes, proudly was right; and now Melicent realized the nature of the emotion which mingled with his fright.

It was a sort of exaltation--a queer, exalted excitement. "It is a small meteorite. It is a bit of cosmic material--a shred of some star which, wandering near the world, came in my window."

"And might have killed you," said Donald.

"Might have," agreed Theodore, "but obviously did not. The danger from it, therefore, is patently past; but there remains its meaning."

"Its meaning?" said Melicent.

"Its significance, obviously," replied Theodore. "My stars, my stars would speak directly to me."

"Bosh, uncle!" Donald objected roughly. "What more, nephew, would be required to convince you? Could there be an intervention--a message more direct?"

"How do you read the message, uncle?"

"I don't know; but Miss Loring will not be in doubt. She will know at once. What time is it?"

"Four o'clock."

"I should call her, anyway."

"No; not now."

"Why not now?"

Donald could offer no objection more convincing than the hour of the night. He seemed to Melicent upset and confused; on the other hand, Theodore Cornwall was becoming clearer in his mind each moment.

"I was wavering--I confess it now--in my allegiance to the stars," he announced.

"So this was sent to warn me."

"Warn you," muttered Donald.

"Give it to me," ordered Theodore and he obtained it. "Plainly it was meant for me."

"Plainly," agreed Donald; and they stared at each other.

Donald first remembered Melicent and he turned to her. "You must go back to bed."

"I can't think of it," said Melicent.

"You can do nothing here," Donald told her and he led her into the hall, closing the door behind them.

"Do you know anything about that--thing?" he demanded.

"Know anything?"

"I mean, what did you see or hear? What alarmed you?"

"I saw it outside, I think," said Melicent. "There seemed to be a flash; then I heard it."

"Seemed to be a flash?"

"I couldn't be sure. I was almost asleep; my eyes were closed; but I think there was a bright flash. Then I heard the smash when it hit."

"Yes; it came in through the window, as he said--missing him by perhaps eight feet."

"Did it miss you by much more? You were sleeping in there, weren't you?"

"On the couch. It went by at my feet. I didn't see it go by; the smash woke me up; and there it was on the floor, burning the floor."

"Donald!" exclaimed Melicent, suddenly seizing him. " What is it? What in the world is it?"

"Melicent, I don't know!"

"It can't be a meteorite--or can it?"

He had clasped her, holding her close before him; and they clung together for a moment like children in a thunderstorm. "Of course it can be a meteorite," Donald whispered. "As he said, a shred of some star. There are millions and billions and billions of shreds of stars and worlds and comets forever wandering through space. The earth sweeps up hundreds of thousands--millions each day. Most of them burn out, of course, in the upper atmosphere with barely a flash that anyone can see. A few--one in a million or more--are big enough to get through the atmosphere and strike the earth.

"They strike mostly in waste places or in the sea; because, of course, there's so many waste places and so much sea. But there's no reason why one shouldn't some time strike in a city. In fact, they sometimes have, as everybody knows. But I never heard of one coming into one's room. . . . Yet, why not that, too?"

"To-night?" said Melicent. "After the sign?"

"That's it, of course. That's what got me, too. There was the fog, you know, that killed Aunt Alice."

"I know very well," replied Melicent. "No one could have poisoned that; no one could have sent the fog. It must have--just come."

"And this--this?"

He could make no reply. He asked: "Where's Aunt Hannah?"

"She didn't awake."

"Are you sure she can awake?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. Hadn't you better go back to her? If she awakes, don't tell her of this, will you? Not to-night, anyway. I've got too many things to think out; and I'd better go back to Uncle Theodore. If there's anything wrong with her, of course you'll--"

"Of course."

He bent forward suddenly, and she raised her lips. He kissed her and then thrust her away. "We depend on each other," he said.

"Always."

"All right."

He was gone; and her duty was to return to her room where she promptly learned that Hannah Cornwall was quite capable of awakening. In fact, she had awakened and had entered the room which Melicent had deserted. She was standing, in her night clothes, at the middle of the floor.

"Where have you been, Miss Waring?"

"In the hall."

"I heard voices; whispering. Who was with you?"

"Donald-your nephew."

"I suspected that. When did you go out there?"

"I don't know; perhaps a quarter hour ago."

"How long have such meetings been going on?"

"They haven't been going on, Miss Cornwall. To-night there was an alarm."

Melicent caught herself quickly, reminded of her promise just given to Donald not to report to his aunt the matter of the meteorite; however, having started upon an explanation, she had to give one; and so, instead of telling what had just happened, she related her earlier expedition into the living room, as if it had just occurred. It did not satisfy Miss Cornwall, who complained: "I don't see why in the world you would want to go out and expose yourself to risks like that. It isn't sensible and it isn't nice." There was a short pause and then Miss Cornwall accused her: "And do you realize what you have done? You left this door open behind you; and you've given away the fact that we sleep in each other's rooms."

"But only to your nephew," Melicent defended herself.

"Only to my nephew!" Miss Cornwall mocked in such a tone that Melicent added:

"And I don't believe he noticed."

"Of course he noticed. You have seriously impaired one of the few circumstances that made it possible for me to exist with any degree of security, now that you have exposed our plan, our system."

"But," pleaded Melicent, "it was only Donald who found out--"

"Only Donald!" Miss Cornwall cast back at her. "Only Donald. And Donald was the only one who was present when his father died. And Donald arrived just after Everett died. And Donald was in Brussels, safely away, when the fog came that killed Alice. And Donald to-night has posted himself as my--brother Theodore's keeper, after Theodore got his death message. Did it ever occur to you"--and her voice sank to a ghastly whisper--

"that I wanted to keep my secret from Donald perhaps more than from any of the others?"

Melicent shrank from Miss Cornwall. "I'm sorry; but--but it must be inconceivable that Donald--"

The old woman straightened up. "You ought to be sorry. Twice during the last few minutes you have called my nephew by his first name. Under normal circumstances I might be sufficiently democratic not to resent that fact, but with things as they are, I think any such familiarity, even if it is unconscious, is decidedly unappropriate. I will go back to your room to sleep. Since our custom of exchanging rooms has been discovered, it will be assumed that we will now change back, and consequently we shall not do so.

Heretofore you have always been a great satisfaction to me, Miss Waring, but to-night I feel that you have acted beyond your authority and, I may add, in a manner that is almost imbecile." Miss Cornwall retreated and closed the door.

Melicent returned to bed; and her mind did not follow Miss Cornwall an instant after the closing the door. Her whole thought and feeling sought the room where Donald again confronted his uncle with the strange, scarred bit of pitted metal in his hand. Was it actually a meteorite--a scrap of some star? Was there actual significance in its coming to Theodore Cornwall, in this queer crisis of his life? Or was it purely an accident-a cosmic coincidence without any meaning at all?

All the world, not long ago, read meaning into anything striking from the stars.

An eclipse halted a battle upon which an empire depended; a comet heralded the Norman conquest of England. Were they all wrong who read, for ages, human fate from portends in the sky?

Plainly, Theodore Cornwall had come to be more pleased than frightened by what had happened. It heightened his importance, flattered him with a sense of celestial attention. A meteorite, to warn him, had entered his room.

But did Donald believe that? Melicent was sure that he did not. He had been finding, through those minutes of surprise and confusion, some other explanation of it all.

What?

She lay thinking about Donald, dwelling on their first meeting in the old house of Hannah's and their encounter again at night in the eerie light of the room which was beginning to burn. She compared that night with this; and contrasting only the minute in the burning room with the minutes in the dark of the living-room when he held her behind him, she realized how very far Donald Cornwall and Melicent Waring had traveled on the trail--to what? Love? Well, to something.

Then there was their kiss, which neither had planned or consciously intended, but which they had had to give each other to-night.

Was she in love with him? At every one of their highly temporary intervals of peace and pleasantess, she had enjoyed being with him.

Melicent was ripened and ready for love. She was at an age when most girls have already loved at least once, and only the diligence with which she had pursued self-education, and the attention she had devoted to her business, had kept her from an earlier surrender.

Donald had great strength, both physical, expressed in his tall and powerful frame, and intellectually, shining from his vivid eyes. The shape of his chin was an index of some fixity of purpose. His mouth was not without humor and both the curl and color of his hair spoke of vitality. In those few intervals during which they had been a young man and a young woman and no mote, she had an acute consciousness of yearning born within herself. He had reflected it.

Nevertheless, love--real love--scarcely could be expected to develop under the exciting and gruesome circumstances in which both she and Donald lived. Her own emotions--and his, too--were not to be trusted. Emotions of some sort constantly were being aroused; emotions of one sort exaggerated feelings of another. Like to-night when neither of them intended to kiss; and they had, because they were scared and a little in awe at the idea that a shred of a star had come to give them a warning.

She had promised, however, to depend on him; and promised that he could depend on her. Then what was that his aunt had said? He, it had been, who most of all was not to know that Miss Cornwall and she changed rooms!

The sun was shining bright; the sun was high over the city. It was nearing noon; for, at last, Melicent had fallen asleep and in the morning Miss Cornwall had let her sleep.

Miss Cornwall was up and about. Her room was empty and Melicent, dressing, learned from a servant that Miss Cornwall had breakfasted two hours ago and was now in her sister's suite. Mr. Donald Cornwall had gone out; Mr. Theodore Cornwall was at breakfast.

So nothing more had happened during the night. Melicent found Theodore alone at the breakfast table where a place was set for her.

Theodore's thin face showed traces of the night's experience. He was suffering an evident reaction. For a few splendid hours after his discovery of the change in his horoscope, and after the appearance of the sign across the street, he had been carried by an inner psychological wave almost to ecstasy. Then the coming of the meteorite--or what he believed to be a bit of cosmic material--into his room at first frightened him but immediately afterward raised him to almost hysterical exaltation. But now, morning had come with the disillusionments which accompany light; and he was feeling himself again an old man. Accustomed worries and apprehension sat upon him again, small distractions beset him and he had fallen headlong from the pinnacle of grandiose excitement which had sustained him in the night.

He greeted Melicent moodily. "Good morning, Miss Waring."

"Good morning, Mr. Cornwall." She sat down and asked the butler for grapefruit.

"I hope, after I left, you had a quiet night."

His eyes rested on her with uncanny inspection. "Quiet? Did you expect it to be quiet?"

"Nothing more happened, did there?" she inquired.

"Happened? Oh, you mean externally; no, nothing more happened externally.

There were no more--manifestations. But you scarcely expected that I spent the rest of the night in sleep."

"No," admitted Melicent soothingly. "Of course you couldn't. You have communicated, now, with Miss Loring?"

"She has been here--and gone," Theodore replied briefly. "It was senseless of Donald to have prevented me calling her in the night. She would have come gladly. No case ever has interested her like mine," said Theodore, with a resurgence of the pride which had sustained him in the night.

"I can understand that," said Melicent.

"Even before the meteorite arrived, my situation, in respect to the stars, was most unusual. The arrival of the meteorite has made it unique in her experience. She came here at once, as soon as I phoned her, finally. I have told her all; and she has gone for more counsel."

"I see. Then she will tell you what to do?"

"She has told me, in general, already. The wide aspect of my course is absolutely clear. Only details remain to be filled in."

The swinging door thudded and both of them were silent until Melicent's grapefruit had been placed in front of her and the butler had once more left the room.

Then the girl said: "May I ask what the aspect is?"

"Certainly. I shall leave town to-day."

"Leave New York?"

"Exactly."

"For what place?"

He shrugged. "That is what will later be told me; but to-day I depart. I am going far and fast. The meteorite could have no other meaning. 'You cannot stay safe by staying where you are,' it said to me plainly. 'Travel.' Moreover, this is in complete keeping with the recent reading of my stars, as you know--'take matters into your own hands,' they said. 'You can save yourself only by being rash, never by being careful.'" He spoke the words confidently, almost arrogantly, but his glance at Melicent was disturbed with doubt.

She ate some of her grapefruit and then said, "Donald's gone out, I understand."

"Yes."

"What does he think of your traveling?"

"He thinks it's an excellent idea. He has offered to accompany me. He will do so."

"Oh!" It escaped her with unconscious poignancy. Donald was going away with his uncle. She, undoubtedly, would remain or go elsewhere with Hannah Cornwall and Lydia. It was plain that Theodore and Donald were traveling alone.

If Theodore noticed her exclamation, he did not betray it; he was completely immersed in his own fates.

"Donald is out investigating the sign," Theodore continued, glancing out the window opposite which the electric sign, so alarming at night, stood in the sunlight a scant framework of wood and metal with its device barely legible. "Also, he has taken my meteorite with him," said Theodore. "There was considerable discussion about it here this morning. My sisters, as usual, took opposite sides."

"Then you told them about it?"

"After their breakfast. Donald wished them left undisturbed as long as possible. I could eat no more than I could sleep, until Miss Loring knew. Hush, here is my sister Hannah now."

Melicent, following his eyes, looked behind her; and there was Hannah Cornwall.

She stood straight, as always, but never since Melicent had known her was she so aged and gray. There were brown blotches on her skin and her eyes wavered from the other two. When Melicent had first met her, she had possessed the fierce resolution of a strong woman who stands on the threshold of age; now she was shaken, demoralized. She came to the table unsteadily and took refuge in a chair. The butler appeared and solicitously inquired her wants. "Nothing," she murmured absently. "Nothing; nothing at all."

The butler asked Melicent if she would like cereal or eggs, but Melicent had no appetite, and she began to drink her cup of coffee. Miss Cornwall stared into space, drank half a glass of milk which Theodore placed before her, and said at last to Melicent, "I am sorry I was so harsh last night. I did not know what had happened. But you should not have kept it from me. I hope I haven't offended you."

"Of course not," said Melicent.

Hannah turned to her brother. "Have you heard yet from Donald?"

"No; nothing."

"I will wait word from you in my room, Theodore."

She arose.

Melicent arose also and Miss Cornwall said: "You need not come now, unless you prefer."

She disappeared; Melicent remained and was with Theodore when Donald returned; and he made his report to his uncle in her presence.

"I've looked up that sign. There is no firm called Davis, Evans and Taylor in the city. The hat manufacturers have never heard of them. The people who rented the space on the top of the building across the street did it through an agent. The agent is an individual who erects and leases electric signs as part of his business. He tells me that a few days ago an individual appeared who said that a new firm, Davis, Evans and Taylor, were to open a hat store in this neighborhood and they wanted a sign erected in a conspicuous place immediately. It was a rush order. This roof was selected, the design of the sign approved and the whole thing paid, in advance, for cash. The agent did not question the transaction, as it was all paid in advance; and he was used to all sorts of queer things being done for advertising.

"He was beginning to get curious, however, as he heard no more from the people and he could not trace the firm. However, he had been paid so he rushed up the sign and turned it on, as we know. After my talk with him, however, the sign will not burn to-night."

"What good will that do?" demanded Theodore.

"No good, I suppose. However, we have found out that the presence of the sign here--and its legend--can hardly be said to be merely an accident or coincidence."

"Hardly," agreed Theodore. "You have been able to trace only one person who could be connected with establishment of a sign of that design in that place. You spoke of him as an individual. Did you get his description?"

"I got a description," said Donald. "But not of a 'him'; it was of a girl. She represented herself as the secretary of Mr. Davis. She was a girl about twenty-five whose description would be answered by any of a dozen girls on any floor of any big building in New York. There is absolutely no way of tracing her--or her friends."

"However," pronounced Theodore, dismissing this. "However, it was all a matter of mere human agency. A young woman ordered and paid for it, you say; and then she disappeared. Undoubtedly she acted for others; undoubtedly. My meteorite is quite another matter. What have you done about that, Donald; what have you learned about my messenger from my stars?"

"We will soon know about that," Donald assured him.

"I took it up to Columbia University to the department of geology and mineralogy where the professors, who saw it, pronounced it apparently a meteorite. They can tell for certain after making tests. You know," Donald continued more directly to Melicent,

"there are distinctive characteristics about meteoric metal which cannot be duplicated or counterfeited on earth. Iron from the sky differs minutely but definitely from any terrestrial material. We ought to know within an hour or two whether we are dealing," he hesitated a moment, "with heaven or with hell."

Theodore made no comment on this; he arose soon after receiving this report and betook himself to his own room; and Melicent did not yet seek Miss Cornwall. She wanted to talk alone with Donald; but Lydia now prevented this by appearing, from her suite, wheeled in her chair by her faithful and assiduous Ahdi Vado. They were conversing as they came down the hall and Hannah Cornwall evidently hearing them, came from her room and followed them in.

Lydia sat, ponderous and asthmatic, but smiling and bland; and behind her stood the inscrutable Hindu.

"Where is your uncle?" Lydia inquired of her nephew.

"In his room, deciding what he will take with him," said Donald.

"When does he go away?"

"To-day."

"I have been concentrating on his situation. Ahdi Vado and I. Of course we also will go away. We will return to Egypt. I think it has done me good to come back to the States, although I did want you dreadfully to come to Egypt with me for the winter, Hannah. You'd enjoy it there. I would not suggest such a thing to Theodore. Ahdi agrees with me that, in his mood, it would do nothing for him. Don't you, Ahdi?"

At the mention of his name, the Hindu bowed. She turned her large head and looked at him steadily. Then she addressed the others again. "I prefer Egypt. Ahdi Vado infinitely prefers it. He has accompanied me here only at great personal discomfort and risk. He detests cold weather."

"My blood," said Ahdi gently, "is not suitable to it."

"He catches cold," Lydia explained.

"It is very regrettable."

"What are you doing, Donald?"

"I'm going with Uncle Theodore," Donald announced.

Hannah swung about quickly. "What's that? No one said anything about your going, Donald."

"Uncle Theodore has," retorted Donald. "He asked me to go with him; I agreed."

"Why shouldn't they go together, Hannah?" Lydia inquired.

"They shouldn't; that's all," said Hannah stubbornly.

Her sister scrutinized her from underneath her puffy eyelids. "My dear Hannah, the world doesn't swing about at your dictum. It is a very good plan, Theodore and Donald traveling together; is it not, Ahdi?"

"Excellent," replied the Hindu. "Completely in accord."

"In accord with what?" demanded Hannah acidly.

"With cosmic considerations," replied Ahdi Vado placidly. "Nothing occurs unconsidered by the cosmic consciousness. There is no accident; no caprice in the cosmos. There is only imperfect understanding on our part. A meteorite, I am told, struck in his room last night. An extremely rare occurrence; one, then, of extreme significance.

No one could ignore it."

"No," agreed Donald. "That's certainly right."

"Hush!" ordered Hannah. "Hush!"

"Why?"

"I heard the telephone bell a moment ago; your uncle is talking. It is probably that fool Loring woman." It was, as Theodore proclaimed a few minutes later when he joined the family council in his living-room.

"I know exactly what I must do!" he announced. "I am to travel rapidly in this country, not abroad. I must keep on the move for ten days; and then return here. I will leave at once for the west."

Hannah raised her voice in protest. "It isn't safe! It isn't safe for you to step into the corridor. It isn't safe for you to ride in the car. And you will take Donald with you. If both you men go, you will leave us alone, helpless--"

Theodore's sense of responsibility for his two sisters and Melicent was slight. His stars did not order their lives, or their deaths. They had stars of their own to guide them.

He would follow his--especially since a shred of a star had struck in his room last night.

"It has to be that way, Hannah," he replied simply. "Moreover, I know even the details of what I ought to do."

"A false start will be made from the doors of this apartment; but I will make the trip down in the freight elevator. Three taxicabs will carry out my baggage, and a private car, never before in my possession, will convey me away."

"Exactly where are you going?"

"No one will know that but myself."

"And Priscilla Loring!" jibed Hannah.

"That is the same thing," retorted Theodore confidently; and sister and brother confronted each other.

There was a long silence. To Melicent's surprise, it was broken by Ahdi Vado.

"There has been great tribulation in your family. Great danger still threatens it, but courage and right shall prevail." His voice was sweet and gentle and his luminous dark eyes regarded each one of them in turn. "It is not for me to express my private sympathies but I work for all of you."

"You are comforting," Lydia said.

Hannah regarded the Hindu gravely. "I have always wished I could trust to right to prevail, but I can't."

"Perhaps you have not been willing to abandon yourself to the general goodness."

Hannah shook her head. "You seem to make the old age of my sister happy, Mr.

Vado. I will be grateful to you for that."

It was another of Hannah's rare concessions to human relationships. The Hindu appeared to appreciate it and to reflect upon it. Melicent thought about him for a little while. He was never obsequious and yet never proud. She had had no feeling of any sort about him. At first his costume had been a, little absurd, but he did nothing to bother others and never trespassed upon their rights, and his occasional remarks expressed with such solemnity and such deep conviction that he made himself easy to accept and simple to tolerate. She was even occasionally able to understand Lydia's confidence in him. He was a man to whom the world of matter, the world of blood, was foreign. He lived entirely with his dreams and of their nature one could only guess.

Hannah must have felt that there could be no further purpose in a family conflict.

She expressed a decision briefly. "There is nothing for us to do but go to father's house.

Although Theodore was too much involved with his own worries to invite us to stay here, I presume that is what he expected us to do. However, I will call Mr. Reese this morning and we will move up on the Hudson immediately. That is, if it suits you, Lydia."

"Anything for the present," Lydia replied.

"You won't be going immediately to Egypt?"

"Not while you need me."

The conference broke up. Ahdi Vado wheeled Lydia away; Theodore hastened to his packing in his own room; and Hannah once more sought the refuge of her own quarters. Melicent knew that she ought to follow her; but Donald delayed in the living-room.

And Donald was going away on that wild, sudden journey of his uncle's which was ordered by Priscilla Loring.

Melicent lingered too.

"Do you know where you're going, Donald?"

"Wherever he goes; that's all."

"She might be sending him to death."

"That's the exact reason I'm going along. But I'll tell you this for your comfort--if you're concerned about either him or me--I think any place is as safe as here."

"Donald, who's doing these things?"

"Come to the phone with me, and maybe I can describe him to you."

"Somebody will tell you?"

"Somebody will be able to tell me, by this time, one thing I want to know--that is, whether that was actually a bit of a star which struck in uncle's room or--"

"Or what?"

"A bit of very worldly iron which somebody heated and fired in here from the opposite roof."

"Oh!"

"Didn't that possibility occur to you?"

"Yes; that occurred to me."

"Well, let's find out." He led her to the phone and dialed a number. "Hello; this is Donald Cornwall. . . . You've made the test. . . . All right. Give it to me." Then he listened and, while listening, whistled low and softly. "All right. Thanks; thanks tremendously. You're absolutely certain. No mistake! Thanks again. That's all."

"What was it?" whispered Melicent, almost shaking him. "What did he say?"

"He said that metal did not originate and could not have been made in this world.

It came, unquestionably, from the sky. It is meteoric iron which traveled into Uncle Theodore's room."

Melicent felt a queer hollowness. "Then nobody did it. He was struck at from the stars."

"Hold that thought," said Donald grimly. "It will help us to escape, perhaps, from the most devilish plan ever born in the brain of man."

CHAPTER XII

THEODORE and Donald departed in the manner' ordained; and, as promptly as possible, Mr. Reese arranged for the reopening of the original Cornwall homestead for occupancy by Hannah and Lydia.

The lawyer was altogether too deliberate and dilatory in his preparations, Hannah thought; and she said so. But at last the refuge was ready.

The house of Silas Cornwall was, in fact, a castle. In every external detail it had been copied from Alcazar which Henry IV of Castile built at Segovia in the fifteenth century. It rose on a peninsula of cliff over the Hudson so that on all sides except one the vertical drop of the lofty stone walls merged into the line of actual cliff. It was a huge building girt with battlements and topped with the spires of numerous round towers. The walls, battlements, windows, watch towers and other architectural features were carefully copied. The result, while architecturally impressive and very beautiful from a distance, was extremely grim on close inspection. It sat upon the cliffs, a mysterious, impregnable fortress, as fantastic in the twentieth century as a parade of knights in armor on Fifth Avenue.

Melicent's approach to the castle with Hannah reminded her of her trip with Mr.

Reese to Blackcroft, and even more of her journey across France to Alice's château on the Domrey River. Apparently the Cornwalls had inherited from their father a taste for massive and sinister architecture. But certainly their father had exemplified that taste more completely than either Hannah or Alice.

The inside of the castle was always dim and shadowy, although its huge rooms and echoing corridors were amply provided with massive chandeliers. Silas' father had called the castle "Alcazar." On three sides the cliff and the walls were almost one. But on the fourth, from which one approached, there was a tongue of land that led into extensive grounds in which a wilderness, unchecked by human cultivation, had grown so thick as to make its own secrets undiscoverable to itself.

Melicent had had a slight indication of what the Cornwall house would be, but no words could have conveyed the majesty of it or the secret potency for evil it possessed.

Her other approaches to Cornwall residences had been under unique circumstances and she had been somewhat uneasy each time. But when the automobile emerged from the forest and her eyes fell on the stone house of "Alcazar," she could not conquer the feeling that this birthplace of the Cornwalls was destined to be their tomb. There was something more than medieval darkness surrounding it--a fresh and more sinister cloud belonging to the present day.

The car rolled toward the house and Melicent felt as if she and Hananh Cornwall were being sucked into its majestic gloom, and if the driver had applied the brakes the car would still have rolled forward. They crossed a drawbridge that for decades had stretched over a dry moat. They bumped onto a flagstone courtyard. The servants, who had been supplied by Mr. Reese, were already in the house and had been instructed in their duties.

A moment later a car in which Lydia and Ahdi Vado rode together entered the stone archway and stopped opposite them in the courtyard.

Hannah and Lydia both accepted the castle. They had lived in it when they were children. Its mysteries were all familiar. It was home. But to Melicent it could never be anything but unnatural. The fact that one room contained a piano and a radio, the presence of a telephone, the ordinariness of the voices and the conversation of the servants that had been hired to open and operate "Alcazar," the electric lights, the huge electric refrigerator in the kitchen--none of those things could ever teach her to ignore the ancient pattern of the edifice, or to forget the black era in man's history from which it had been copied.

They had passed ten days in Theodore's apartment, while the castle was being opened and the staff obtained. In those ten days, not a word had been received from Hannah's brother and her nephew. Each morning, with the arrival of the newspapers, Melicent had scanned the headlines with dread. The telephone seldom rang but when it did each tinkling enlivened alarm. But no message came.

"No news is always good news," Melicent repeated to herself and occasionally ventured a discussion of the matter with Hannah. But Miss Cornwall had become even less communicative than usual; she occupied herself almost furiously with details of instructions for the preparation of her father's house. She seemed obsessed with it; and Melicent guessed that she employed this obsession to shut out other fears.

Nothing more occurred to threaten or menace her. The sign on the opposite roof, having served its purpose, was removed; and no one raised an objection. Nothing more was discovered about the person who paid for it.

Lydia and Ahdi Vado continued their devoted contemplations. The Hindu argued, even, that tranquility was restored; that peace might have been made successfully with those influences in the macrocosm which men call fate; but he interposed no argument against the move to the castle.

The arrival was accomplished in mid-afternoon, when a winter's sun afforded a cold, lumar illumination to the mighty pile of "Alcazar." Hannah's first step was to take Melicent to the rooms she had retained for herself. Two vast rooms, side by side, the narrow windows of which overlooked a sweeping stretch of the river. In one corner of Hannah's room was a round tower with a wider window from which one could look back toward a profile of New York City, dim and blue in the distance. The ceilings were enormously high and cobwebbed with beams which appeared to be fragile only because they were so far from the eyes of one on the floor below. When they reached those rooms, Hannah seemed satisfied.

"Those oak doors," she said, "are four inches thick. They have huge iron locks on them and if you look out of the windows you will see that nobody on earth could reach us from the outside!'

When Melicent looked, she saw that it was true. The walls were one with the cliff and the drop was sheer for three hundred feet to the river. She drew her head back into the room after a moment of alarmed inspection. The place was indeed a fortress; yet, in Melicent's mind, was the fog which killed Alice and the meteoric iron which had come into Theodore's room.

Hannah Cornwall read her thoughts. "You are saying to yourself that walls twice as thick could not have saved Alice; and that Theodore could have been killed from the sky. Something different may be prepared for me; but I will cheat it. You see, if anything happens to Theodore, I'll just stay here in these rooms. Now I've thought, during these days, of everything--everything that can possibly happen to me here; and I will forestall it. I will not follow my brothers and sisters. . . . I used to love this place when I was a child."

Melicent shivered slightly. There was only one place in the entire building in which she could be at home. In what must have been designed for a closet, a gigantic closet, had been made a modern bathroom with tiled walls, and a relatively low ceiling.

When she was in that room with the electric lights turned on and no barred windows to cast suggestive shadows on the floor, she could almost imagine that she was, living in a normal world. But she had very little time in which to contemplate the future of her mental peace of mind at "Alcazar."

Lydia and Ahdi Vado had rooms lost somewhere in the vast interior of the castle.

The afternoon was spent in unpacking. The whole routine of flight and fresh settling for a little while in a new place, soon to be made untenantable, was so familiar to Melicent that it was almost a habit. At six o'clock a ship's gong boomed and they walked on stone flag corridors through the baronial rooms of the first floor to the dining salon. They were joined by Lydia, and there, in a chamber suitable for organizing a crusade, or the last banquet before a search for the Holy Grail, they had their supper. It was no fit place for two old women and a girl.

After supper Miss Cornwall asked Melicent to come up to her room at nine and excused herself. A little later Lydia withdrew. Except for the servants moving vaguely in various portions of the house, Melicent was left alone and to her own devices, as she had been at Blackcroft. For a little while she checked her sense of oppression sufficiently to take an intelligent interest in the house. She inspected the front hall and the rooms on both sides. Silas Cornwall had evidently been something of a collector and among his medieval trophies were several possessions not calculated to reassure their observer.

Melicent came upon one which she particularly disliked--a helmet, no longer bright and in some places rusty, its unused vizor pulled down with a sword thrust through the metal on both sides. She wondered, if she had the courage to lift that vizor, what still more literal relic of forgotten combat she might find behind it. It was impossible for her to divide the house into living rooms, libraries, and music rooms. There were many chambers, all lofty, some sixty or seventy feet long, and all of them were furnished with huge chairs of carved wood and leather, gigantic tables, chests, cases, bookshelves, and in all of them were fireplaces.

The farther she carried her investigation, the less comfortable she became, and at last in self-defense she went to the circular room in which she had noticed a radio and switched it on. The light over the dial reassured her. Presently the long dead past represented by "Alcazar" was disturbed and driven a little back by the voice of an announcer. The voice became jazz. Jazz reminded Melicent that she could look out of windows that had been designed for archers and see the lights of Manhattan and Hoboken and Jersey City and the Bronx and Staten Island. By and by the jazz stopped, the broadcast station played its chimes and a new program was announced. Melicent realized how early their dinner had been, how early in the evening it still was, for the new program was Lawrence Bartlett reciting the news of the day. She settled beside the instrument and listened with concentration. It was her only hold on civilization and almost her only hold on sanity.

"Hello, everybody!" the big, rapid voice of Lawrence Bartlett boomed cheerfully.

"The news bag is full of presents to-night and I'm going to distribute as many of them as I can in the fifteen minutes allowed. They're having a big time in Paris to-night. An American aviator recently broke all the European records between the largest cities, but to-night a Frenchman, Gaspard Vormeil, has put the American in his place and as much as said to him, 'You better go home, Uncle Sam, because we can do things on our own grounds.' He flew a mystery ship that has been in the making for the last twelve months.

He had his breakfast in Paris at eight o'clock this morning. A little later he dropped in on London for gasoline, but he didn't stay in London for lunch. Not Gaspard! He had his lunch in Berlin and he had his lunch right on time, too. One o'clock. Well, he must have said, 'The food in Berlin is not too good and I better go somewhere else for tea.' He went down to Rome. He had tea in Rome a little bit early and then he must have thought of his friends waiting for him back there in Paris, because no sooner had he finished his cup of tea--at least we will assume that it was tea he drank--when he started back for Le Bourget. He got there at nine-fifteen and found his friends still waiting dinner for him.

The mystery ship is certainly a wow! Experts are trying to figure out just how fast it flew, but nobody seems to have seen it long enough to be sure. Not all the news is good news, but a good deal of the news is aviation news. Here's some bad news. Early this afternoon two men, who were in a hurry to get from Chicago to New York, chartered a passenger plane. The plane was a big one and a fast one and carried two pilots. But the two men apparently were nervous about flying, or else they believed in taking no chances, because they carried parachutes with them, which is about like a passenger on a steamship liner bringing his own life preserver. They left Chicago at half-past one. When they got over Pennsylvania they ran into a little fog. A little fog doesn't mean anything to you and to me and all the rest of us aeronauts, but it did to those two men. They got frightened. Then one of the motors began to kick up and their fright increased. The extra pilot went out on the cat-walk to see what he could do about that motor and meanwhile the two passengers became more and more alarmed. Neither of the pilots paid much attention to them. They were too busy. When they looked around both their passengers were about to get off--to get off with their parachutes. They did. Both of them were pretty cool. The pilots saw them jump. But their altitude was considerable and the fog was pretty dense. They didn't see what happened to the two parachute jumpers after they were swallowed by the murk below and nobody else had seen them since. The pilots got their plane down all right and made a forced landing on an emergency field twenty miles from the place where their passengers had leaped. It is assumed that both men were killed. Searching parties have found no traces of them up to the present moment and a dispatch says that the country below was full of many lakes and ponds, into which they may have fallen. It is possible, too, that since they were inexperienced in handling their parachutes, they did not get them open and dropped to the earth like plummets. The two men who probably lost their lives by taking a foolhardy chance, when commercial flying offered greater safety, were Theodore and Donald Cornwall, members of that famous old Yankee family which is one of the richest in America.

"Theodore Cornwall is one of the joint heirs to an income from an estate valued at two or three hundred million dollars and that estate goes to the last Cornwall brother or sister surviving. Donald was his nephew. I have an Associated Press Dispatch here which tells me that Theodore Cornwall, if he has lost his life in his reckless parachute jump, will be the fourth member of the family to die within the last three months, and that he will be survived by two sisters. That means that one of those sisters will inherit one of the greatest fortunes, in the country. But I haven't only tragedy to bring you. Here's a story about a cuckoo clock--"

Melicent did not hear the story about the cuckoo clock; the voice went on, relating it; but Melicent Waring stood in front of the radio, her hands clenched tight together, and spoke back at it.

"He isn't dead," she denied in a low, vibrant voice. "He can't be dead." She referred to Donald.

Theodore Cornwall might be dead. A seizure of horror passed over her, thinking of that; but nothing in her rose to refuse the whole idea of it. On the contrary, it was only reasonable that he would die. Was he not T in the frightful series of fate; had he not been the next doomed to die; had not he, indeed, read his fatal message? No; she could not deny the death of Theodore Cornwall. She could not, in fact, think about him. He became a figure in the background--a figure she could not have expected to survive. But for Donald to die! Donald to be swept away, never to hear his voice once more!

So Melicent, standing there speaking back at the radio, discovered the secret within her which had underlain all she had done in the last frightful weeks. It was Donald. Her mind numbly traced the whole history of her relations in the Cornwall family. By instinct and without words she knew she had decided to stay with them because at the very beginning when the stark tragedies stalked the family a young man with red hair and blue eyes had come through the front door and asked her if she had a name.

She knew that while he had been friendly with her, and often shared his confidence with her, he still remained enigmatic. His past was more or less a mystery.

She was not fully informed about his education, where he had traveled, for whom he had cared, what sort of things he liked, what he disliked--the innumerable details of habit, choice, and behavior, which combine to make up a personality. Her glimpses of his human likeableness had been brief at the best.

But now, from the ether had come word that he was almost surely dead. She did not rush upstairs to tell Hannah Cornwall of the accident. She sat in front of the radio without even the relief of tears and said, "It can't be. It mustn't be." Until at last she said,

"I love him," and after that she wept.

A few minutes passed while her shoulders shook and her head was held in her hands. The radio announcer vanished from the air and in his place came two world-famous comedians. She did not hear them. She was thinking that she had stayed with the Cornwalls, not because she was bold or brave, not because she was a steadfast person, but because she was in love. And now they said that the man she loved was gone forever.

There would be no opportunity to participate in that period of human ecstasy during which two people find themselves drawn rapidly and willingly closer and closer together.

She did not doubt but that if he had not already been in love with her she could make him love her. He had been all his life a wanderer, a forlorn man, a hungry man, a man to whom had come many splendid things but not love. She knew, in fact, that he had tried to interest her in a way so casual that that very quality would have revealed its desperation if she had been careful to notice it. Now it was too late.

She remembered her duty. She appreciated what the news would mean to Hannah Cornwall. Daniel. Everett. Alice. Theodore. But one letter--H--remained to complete the word "Death" upon the Cornwall tombstones. H for Hannah. Melicent thrust aside the agony of that moment and went upstairs.

On the door of every bedroom in the castle of Silas Cornwall was a huge cast-iron ring, which served as a knocker and also turned back the latch. Melicent stood in front of Hannah's door. She felt weak and lost and hopeless. The Cornwall tragedy had suddenly become a tragedy of her own. She knocked, and Hannah, who asked a question from the room behind the door, let her in quickly, because every syllable Melicent spoke was freighted with disaster.

Hannah Cornwall did not say "What's happened?" or "What's the matter?" Any such inquiry would have been superfluous. She merely let the girl into her room, relocked the door and waited like a prisoner preparing for his own execution.

Melicent's voice was low and very soft. "I was listening to Lawrence Bartlett on the radio just now. In the middle of his broadcast about the day's news he said that your brother Theodore and Donald had been going from Chicago to New York in an aeroplane and that something had gone wrong and that they had jumped in parachutes and probably fallen into a lake or something, because they haven't been found."

Hannah sat down in a chair and looked steadily at her secretary. In spite of her shrewdness and the quick perception of her mind, she did not quite understand. She belonged to a generation which had not known the radio, and probably under the shock of impending knowledge her mind acted as it had when she was younger. She could not quite understand the source of what Melicent had said or acclimatize her thoughts to the shocking fact that this new Cornwall tragedy had been thrust almost physically over hundreds of miles of space through the walls of "Alcazar."

"I don't understand," she said.

"I was listening to the radio--" Melicent repeated tremulously. "Yes, the radio. Go on, Miss Waring."

"--to a man who broadcasts the news every night. He just gives little snatches of a few things that have happened during the day, but no details. That's the trouble. He doesn't really know what did happen. All he knows was that Donald and your brother had jumped out of an aeroplane and that they were lost."

"This came over the radio?"

"Yes, Miss Cornwall, over the radio."

"It couldn't be a trick to disturb us?"

"No, Miss Cornwall. It was no trick."

"And it is said both of them were dead?"

"No. It just said that probably both of them were dead."

The obtuseness of Hannah Cornwall was more than Melicent could bear. She repeated in a very low voice, "Maybe he's dead. Maybe Donald's dead," and she threw herself face down on a sofa and began to cry again.

When their distress is very real and very strong, people cry only in short snatches.

Comforting attention will sometimes prolong those periods of tears, but no one comforted Melicent. She soon realized that she was surrounded by frigid silence and after a while she remembered that for the second time her inadvertent behavior was reflecting an interest in Miss Cornwall's nephew to the old lady. She sat up.

Hannah was in a chair a few feet from her. Hannah's arms were on the arms of the chair. Her hands hung down at rigid right angles. Her back was steel stiff and her face was engraved with fear. She did not blink her black eyes and even her mouth did not twitch. The iciness of realization had crept through her while Melicent wept. She was frozen to death with terror.

Melicent made a miserable attempt to project solace to the stiff statue. "Maybe they'll be all right. Maybe I could call up the newspapers and find out about them. Maybe it's just a rumor."

Hannah said nothing.

"I'll go now." She stumbled across the room and took up the receiver of the telephone. Then she remembered she would have to look up a number and she did so.

The pages slithered under her shaking fingers. It was with difficulty that she concentrated her eyes on the letters. She found the number of the newspaper office and she called it.

"I'd like to speak to someone who knows about the aeroplane disaster over the Allegheny Mountains this afternoon. I'm speaking for Hannah Cornwall, a sister of one of the men on that plane." Her voice quivered and halted. She waited for a long time and then repeated her question.

A man at a desk in New York City answered it with terse courtesy. "A report has just come in from Bellmede, Pennsylvania, saying that one of the men landed safely in his parachute. The 'chute the other one jumped in didn't open and he was killed."

Melicent asked, "Which one landed safely?" and it took all the strength she had.

But there was no comfort for her.

The man at the other end of the wire merely said, "Don't know yet. Call up in half an hour," and hung up.

She set the telephone back on the stand and turned her attention toward Hannah with renewed hope. One of the men had landed safely. Donald was young. Donald was strong. And Donald was certainly that one.

"One landed safely. They don't know which one. Oh--"

Miss Cornwall ignored the exclamation wrung from the girl and for the first time in several minutes she spoke. Her voice was at a dead level and seemed to be activated by a portion of her mind wholly beyond human feeling. "Now begins the day which I have dreaded all my life. Now it's here. I'm next. There's no one between me and death." As she continued she made wide gestures of pointing with her hands; slow, sweeping mechanical gestures. "Try all the doors, Miss Waring, and be sure they are locked and bolted." Melicent began mechanically to obey. "Now look out each window and see if there was anything or anyone on the walls."

Melicent leaned out into the icy air, opening the windows each in turn and looking down.

"Now turn over on your back and look up. See that nothing is being let down into this chamber. Look in every closet. Look for small things as well as large." With increasing chill Melicent obeyed these laconic commands. "A small thing would be big enough." Miss Cornwall accompanied Melicent's acts with words. "A tiny snake, a tarantula. We will plug the keyholes and caulk the cracks in the floors, and cement the fireplace. Look up the chimney, Miss Waring."

This rapid survey of the room brought back Melicent a little of her self-control and she realized that her employer was practically out of her senses. The one fact Hannah had gathered from the news that had come over the radio was that according to the fatal words she would be the next to die. Theodore had obviously made a brave stand and she assumed that Theodore was dead.

"On that table, Miss Waring, is the afternoon's mail which I have not yet opened.

There are half a dozen letters. You will take those letters outside, open them yourself and read them."

Melicent picked up the letters and then began, "Doesn't everything always--"

She was stopped by a scream. Hannah Cornwall leaped to her feet, plugged her ears and screamed at the top of her voice. Melicent believed that the old woman had gone completely mad and she shrank away from her. But Hannah was talking again almost immediately in the same level monotone. "I didn't mean to frighten you so badly. I just wanted you to stop talking. Hereafter, you will write down everything you say to me before you say it. Do you realize that you began talking to me with three words that began with 'D'-'E' and 'A'? Hereafter, none of your messages will have such an unfortunate commencement. I will see to it that I do not read or hear a message that has meant the end of my brothers and sister. You will help me to see to that."

Melicent moved closer to Hannah Cornwall. She was numb and horror stricken.

"But, Miss Cornwall, don't you see it isn't the messages that caused the deaths? And if whoever was responsible for them vanished, he could do what he planned to do without sending the messages just as well as after having sent them?"

Hannah blazed illogically into anger. "Are you attempting to tell me what I shall or shall not do ?"

"I'm sorry."

Hannah cut her off. "Don't be sorry. Be careful. Of all the people which surround me, you are the only one in whom I have any confidence whatsoever and my confidence in you is limited by the fact that you are oblivious to many things. From now on I am going to be sealed in this room. No one shall see me but yourself. You will read all communications which come to me and you personally will purchase all my food and convey it here. I shall cook it myself. I will have these windows painted and nothing will be visible to me except blue sky. The house will be guarded day and night. I am the next Cornwall to get the message but I shall never get it." A smile appeared on her face, a ghastly smile anticipating a grim triumph. "When Death writes letters to me, I will not read them, and so I will live. I will live!" She stood up and almost shouted the word

"Live!" Then drama departed from her and her cold, gloomy mood reasserted itself. "Call the newspapers again. Find out."

Melicent was on her way to the telephone when it rang. Before she answered it, Hannah had fairly shouted, "I will rip that thing from this room against the chance I might answer it and hear five words before I thought of what I was doing."

"Hello?" Melicent said. "This is the Pittsburgh operator. We have a call for Miss Hannah Cornwall from Bellmede, Pennsylvania."

"Speaking," Melicent replied and she waited, waited to see what voice she would hear. And then, in spite of the dreadfulness of her situation, in that moment the whole world spun, shuddered, and righted itself once more, for to her ears, loud and strong, came the voice of Donald Cornwall.

"Hello--Aunt Hannah?"

She answered simply. "This is Melicent."

"Oh, hello, Melicent. Is everything all right with you?"

"It's all right."

"We've had a terrible accident here. It's caught up with us, I guess. You know what I mean."

"Yes," Melicent replied. She turned her head in the direction of Hannah and for a moment her eyes perceived the glassy intentness of the sharp, black eyes in the head of the older woman.

Donald said: "If you know what I mean, I'll go ahead. Uncle Theodore was killed this afternoon. We reached Chicago this morning after a delay which to me seemed not to matter; but it upset Uncle Theodore. You see, his instructions were to--return to New York at the end of ten days."

"Priscilla Loring's instructions, you mean," Melicent interrupted.

"Exactly. She wired him yesterday reminding him of it; and it seemed to him essential that he be back in New York to-night. When I opposed him, he grew very excited and more positive about it. He insisted he must fly rather than fail to return in time. He had decided, anyway, to be bold; and I must say he'd done pretty well being bold on the trip up to then.

"However, before taking the airplane, he provided himself and me with parachutes. He insisted on buying them himself because he didn't trust anybody or anything. Then we got aboard. When I say that he found a five-word message in his lunch box after we were aboard the plane and in the air, you will understand what I mean."

Melicent clenched the transmitter. "Five words--the same sort--they came to him again?"

"Not the same five words," said Donald's voice, "but the same sort. Yes, they came to him again. Just after that we ran into a fog and we had some engine trouble. He was frantic. He decided to jump; and he jumped. I jumped, too, in order to be near him when he landed. My parachute opened, Melicent; his didn't."

"Donald, why didn't it?"

"That is being investigated now, Melicent; but--it didn't. I'm waiting for the investigation, of course; and to make arrangements that are necessary. Then, I'll be on as soon as I can. Please break the news to Aunt Hannah as gently as you can."

"I've already told her. The news was on the radio."

"I see. You must have had a bad time. I wish I were there to help you. She must think this brings it right up to her."

"She does."

"Then you'll stick by her, won't you?"

"Of course."

"Good girl. I ought to be there, too. There are things I can't tell over the phone.

Good girl; stick by her, till I get there." He hung up suddenly or was cut off and did not call again.

"Well?" said Miss Cornwall's voice. Melicent turned toward her and tried to hide her inward feeling of radiant relief. "It was Donald."

"Naturally," Hannah said, as if the possibility that Donald and not Theodore had been killed had never occurred to her. "You spoke of five words--a message, another message came to Theodore?"

"Yes, Miss Cornwall."

"They cannot kill without it; don't you see?" Hannah almost shrieked in triumph.

"Without it, they cannot kill; so my plan will prevail. They can never kill me because I will never receive their message. I will hold them helpless--helpless to hurt me because I shall prevent them delivering their message in any form or in any manner ever to me. I am H after Daniel and Everitt and Alice and Theodore; but their five-word message shall never come to me!"

CHAPTER XIII

SHE laughed; and her laughter rose shrill and frightful. But the sure knowledge that Donald was safe overcame all other emotion in Melicent. He was safe and returning to her! She had fortitude, therefore, to endure anything through the next few hours; and she determined to remain calmly with Hannah Cornwall.

After a few moments of silence Melicent said, "Do you--" and she was stopped once again by Hannah Cornwall.

"I will have to put into effect my idea of making you write down everything before you say it. There's a pad and pencil over on the table. My nerves could not survive the danger of accident, and whenever you start a sentence with 'D' I am on edge--on edge-

--"

Melicent tried to reason. "But, Miss Cornwall, if you trust me as you say you do, you should know that I am not going to give you any message by speaking to you."

"I trust you, but you might do it inadvertently. You might have the five right words planted in your mind by something someone said and repeat them to me. I can't fortify myself against accident."

"But--"

Hannah Cornwall herself handed the pencil and paper to Melicent. "It is no use protesting. I have made up my mind. If you have anything to say, write it down. I will talk to you and no one else. Perhaps now you better go and tell Lydia what has happened."

"Very well," Melicent agreed.

When Miss Cornwall let her through the door into the hall, she first armed herself with a revolver, and after Melicent had gone out, she slammed the door so hard the knocker banged heavily against it, and she slid the bolt. An almost complete hysteria possessed her and although Melicent fully appreciated the difficulties under which she must now exist, she also realized that the mind of the older woman was no longer wholly rational.

Once she was outside the chambers belonging to her employer, Melicent was able to devote a few brief seconds to her own feelings. There was something almost irreverent about the strength and joy imparted to her by a candid acknowledgment of her love for Donald Cornwall. Nevertheless, that acknowledgment flooded her mind. She gave herself up to a transient contemplation of little things about him-intonations of his voice, slow, gentle motions of his big hands and the whimsical way he had of whistling when he was by himself, a little tuneful, quiet whistle that, nevertheless, could be heard all through the house. It was a testimony not only to the strength of her feeling but to the strength of her human attachment that she was able to consider such things while she walked through the sinister halls of "Alcazar" to carry a death notice.

Lydia was sitting in her bed reading when Melicent came into the room after knocking. She put down her book and her small eyes blinked over the pouches beneath them at the girl. Melicent was concerned with what she would say and how she would present it to Lydia Cornwall, with whom her contacts had been neither frequent nor close.

There was nothing definitely critical in anything

Lydia Cornwall had done or said, but her manner did not invite familiarity.

She said, "Come in, young lady, come in. Don't stand there with the door open.

There are drafts enough in this house without that. I suppose Hannah has sent you here for some reason or other. Sit down, if you like. You look tired to death. You are a nervous person, anyway, aren't you?"

Melicent half smiled and realized that it was not the proper expression for the circumstances. Her whole feeling was supercharged with a dread of the consequences of the message she had to tell.

"Don't grin," Lydia Cornwall said wheezily, and then her attention focused on Melicent's eyes and she suddenly moved away from her pillow. "Something's happened, hasn't it? You've got bad news for me."

"Yes, I have."

"Well, what about it? What is it?"

In that instant Melicent decided to go directly to the point without any effort of preparing the older woman. "Your brother Theodore was killed this afternoon when he jumped from an aeroplane in a parachute."

There was a momentary silence on the part of Lydia Cornwall. An expression of incredulity passed over her face.

"That cannot be true," she replied, almost calmly and so amazed Melicent that she found herself arguing it.

"Why can't it be true?"

"It can be, of course," she admitted almost in the same tone as the denial. "But I was not expecting it. I do not believe it. How do you know?"

"The news came over the radio," Melicent replied and Lydia Cornwall snapped her soft fingers.

"That for the radio."

"Then I have just talked over the telephone with Donald."

"Eh? Did you? What did he say?"

"He said that your brother was dead."

"Donald said that? You are sure it was Donald?"

"I spoke with him myself."

"Very well; go on."

So Melicent proceeded suffering frequent and sceptical interruptions but at last succeeded in reporting the news in full.

"Why didn't my brother's parachute open--when Donald's did?" Lydia challenged her at last; and Melicent still felt as though the older woman were trying to catch her in a lie, as though she had come there with a fabricated account.

"I don't know," confessed Melicent. "That is being investigated, Donald said."

And now Melicent turned on her. "Why have you not expected this?" she demanded.

"Why won't you believe it?"

"Does one expect death?" retorted Lydia. "And as to believing it--beliefs bring things on. You ask me to believe a thing before it has occurred and aid in precipitating it.

So I shall not believe Theodore dead, until I know it is so."

Melicent stared at her helplessly until her mind, returning to Hannah Cornwall with her walls and locks and keys and newly decreed silences, realized that Lydia too must have perfected her own circle of defense; and this was it.

Lydia looked down and traced with her right forefinger the pattern in the gaudy quilt that was spread over her. The finger trembled slightly. "Does Hannah believe this?"

she inquired.

"Yes. I told her the news from the radio. Then she was beside me when I talked with Donald."

"I suppose, then, that to Hannah's mind, at least, this is another confirmation of her fancy that our family is fated ?"

"Yes; it undoubtedly is."

"Undoubtedly. Hannah exerts no resistance. I mean in her mind; she depends wholly upon material defences--which never availed anyone." Lydia was speaking slowly, almost disconnectedly. "Tell me, in Donald's account of the circumstances which you have repeated, did another message come first to Theodore?"

"It did. A five-word message of the same sort. He found it in his lunch box after they were in the plane and the plane was in the air."

Melicent saw the old woman flinch as if she had been pricked or stung.

"Humph!" she ejaculated. "Well, what is Hannah doing now? Why did she send you to tell me instead of corning here herself?"

"She was exceedingly upset. She has locked herself in her room and she told me she is going to stay there and not talk to anybody."

Lydia nodded her head slowly, and thoughtfully. A full minute passed during which she said nothing, and then her remark was more an articulation of her thoughts than a question. "She's 'H,' isn't she?"

"Yes," Melicent answered. "She believes that she's going to be the next one to--"

"I can see that she might. That makes things look rather unpleasant for me, if all this comes about."

Lydia still tried to pretend: it had not actually happened.

"For you?" Melicent repeated.

"If Hannah is murdered, I'll inherit father's fortune. And it will certainly look as if I'd murdered everybody else to get it, or at least as if I'd had everybody else murdered."

"I don't believe anybody would dream of accusing you!"

Lydia shrugged. "Maybe not. But suppose somebody has--Oh, well. Let's not suppose. Tell Ahdi Vado to come in here. He's in the next room." Lydia nodded toward a door.

Melicent knocked on it and it was opened by Ahdi Vado.

He stepped into the room, bowing to Melicent and gravely approaching the bedside of Lydia Cornwall. "You wished me?"

"Yes, Ahdi. I have news that my brother was killed in an aeroplane accident this afternoon. What would you say to such news?"

The Hindu looked up with an expression of surprise and sadness.

"You mean you have doubtful news?"

"I'm afraid," said Melicent, "there's no doubt about it."

"Then it is very sad."

Lydia twitched. "Ahdi, you are accepting it."

Ahdi Vado inclined his head. "What is feared, must be opposed--steadfastly and faithfully," he repeated. "What has occurred, one must accommodate oneself to. When one fails to do so, it is to fear an event even after it has happened."

"Ahdi, you can feel that this has happened?"

The Hindu nodded. "Since you have spoken, I can."

"Ahdi, if it happened, my brother was murdered."

The mystic looked from one woman to the other with blank, contemplative eyes.

"Murdered? I know that you had considered that was threatened; yet I felt that your fears were excessive. I hoped that the elements of destruction had been allayed. Your brother was a quiet man, offending no one. He himself had regulated his days so that they became a long sequence of opportunities for contemplation. Nothing else. The idea of murder is very strange."

Lydia gazed speculatively at the dark-skinned man. At length she said, "That's all, Ahdi. I want you to think about it; and then I want to know your conclusions. I want you to think about all the deaths in my family and I want you to reconsider as to whether or not a curse could now explain them."

Ahdi Vado's eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. "Curse?" he repeated. "In the realm of the soul and in the infinite boundaries of time such a thing as a curse cannot be conceived by those who are thoughtful. I am very sorry about your brother, and I should most surely contemplate the destiny of the family with the eye of my mind." He bowed, first to Lydia, then to Melicent, and withdrew. The door closed behind him.

Lydia sighed. "Half the time I think he's a marvelous man, and half the time I think he's a--what's the word--a-sap. It's a bad thing, Miss Waring, to be born with a medieval mind and a modern temperament. So Theodore is gone. You can understand that, in spite of all that has happened, it is difficult for me to believe it; such a fact cannot abruptly become actual; but five minutes from now, it may. . . . I've often had an itch to let you know, at least, that there are strains of normalcy running through my ponderous, old frame. At the same time, don't get the idea that I am not interested in Eastern philosophy. I am. I know a great deal about it. It's trying to acquaint it with present-day life that difficult. Tell Hannah that I've withdrawn to my cloister, but above all, if you find out any more about why four Cornwalls have suddenly ceased to live, hurry up here and tell me, will you?"

"If I hear anything," Melicent said.

"Now, go away. I am exhausted and exhaustion is bad for me. But if you could just look at me a little more kindly when we pass each other, it would make my day brighter. I am not an absolute and congenital idiot, you know."

Melicent walked to the door.

"Good night, Miss Waring."

"Good night."

Alone in the corridor of "Alcazar," Melicent again felt the surprise and shock of a new discovery. It fitted perfectly with all she had learned about the Cornwalls.

Superficially they were people without sense, control or direction. Actually they concealed beneath their complicated exteriors a great deal of character and mentality.

There was a vast heritage of real personality in each of them and that heritage must have come from their empire building father, old Silas Cornwall.

As she walked along she checked the differences which she had observed. Everitt had been light and frivolous, and yet she knew he had been a brave man and a man of adverse and romantic behavior. Alice Cornwall had appeared to be shallow-minded and garrulous until suddenly in a French café she had launched almost ferociously into the subject of the murder of her two brothers. Lester, in the third generation, had seemed to be an abysmal fop, until a swirling, death-carrying vapor had extracted from him evidences of the utmost courage. Then and there was Theodore, with his doctors and his horoscopes and his health systems, suddenly rising to such a pinnacle of abandon that he jumped from an aeroplane in a parachute. Donald was like that--brilliance concealed beneath flippancy and nonchalance.

The strain ran through the whole family--a family of complicated and contradictory people, whose actions in the times of stress and crisis could not be predicted by a casual knowledge of them.

The thought put in her mind by this realization of family resemblance in character of each one was immense and startling: anyone of the Cornwalls might be the murderer of the other five; each one had the nerve, the intelligence and the motive. Each one had built up over decades a camouflaged personality which concealed the individual almost wholly. There were still two Cornwalls left alive and possibly one of those two was the assassin. The terrific thought that she would have to decide between Hannah and Lydia gripped Melicent so that her steps lagged and her very brain reeled. Then she cast it aside.

In any such system of thinking there was still the possibility of a third person, an outsider.

But the possibility that the deaths had been accidental could no longer be entertained.

They had been ingeniously contrived to resemble accidents. That was all. They were murders and yet she realized with a fresh insight that the most scrupulous investigation would maintain each one was an accident. They had been preceded by messages. Everitt Cornwall had been found with a copper spider in his hand--and unless Donald had definite information about his uncle's parachute, any observer would be compelled to say that the Cornwalls had died from natural causes or from mishap rather than at the hands of a person or persons unknown.

It was eleven o'clock. Melicent sat in her own bedroom with the lights on. For the first time she and Hannah Cornwall had departed from their habit of changing rooms before retiring. Her venerable employer was also awake. She had refused to open her door to allow Melicent to enter. She had also refused to let Melicent speak to her and their communication had been conducted by words spoken on Miss Cornwall's part and words written by Melicent and slipped under the door after she had carefully inspected them to be sure that none of their sequences spelled the single syllable in dread of which Hannah Cornwall now sat quivering.

Between nine and eleven Melicent had exchanged a few notes with Miss Cornwall and for the rest of the time she had listened to the sounds made by the old woman as she fortified herself by dragging chairs and tables and bureaus across the room to barricade the fireplace and the dumbwaiter. Melicent had also been told to instruct four of the servants to sit up all night in various parts of the house, and in order to accomplish this curious command, Miss Cornwall had given each of the servants a written agreement of double wages. Melicent had taken it upon herself to explain that this nocturnal vigilance was demanded by Miss Cornwall because she was neurasthenic. She used the term to the servants and explained it by simpler words. Miss Cornwall was very nervous.

She had spells. When she had such spells she could not sleep or eat or exist in any comfort at all unless she knew that several people were awake constantly in her house.

The servants had accepted the situation and acted upon it, partly because of the increase in their wages, and partly because, since they were chosen for their character and general excellence and experience, they were accustomed to the caprices of rich employers. They even looked upon it in the light of interesting adventure. And to the minority who complained over the institution of a night watch system, Melicent merely indicated their replaceability.

From a nightly prisoner Melicent had become a free lance. She was now Miss Cornwall's source of food, of information--Miss Cornwall's other self and her only access to the outside world. The final stages of Hannah Cornwall's hysteria were represented by this voluntary incarceration. Particularly good evidence of the fact that it was hysteria was to be found in the fact that she guarded against the reception of any messages as carefully as she buttressed herself against the entrance into her chamber of any person or any thing.

In periods when Melicent's imagination outran her self-control, she realized the inadequacy of what Hannah Cornwall had done that night. Anyone could walk up to the bedroom door and bellow the death message in so loud a voice that it could be heard by the old woman. The poison mist that had killed Alice would not have been stayed by chiffoniers and dressing tables. But obviously "Alcazar" could not be burned as Blackcroft had been and it was equally obvious that ordinary bombing or firearms would have little effect on Hannah Cornwall's defenses.

Thus on that night the fifth of the Cornwalls began her last stand against the hand of doom, while the sixth member of the family presumably slept peacefully in her distant quarters in the castle.

At half-past eleven the doorbell rang and the nervous servants posted through the great edifice were startled by a temporary belief that perhaps some real function would be demanded of their new situation. The doorbell, however, announced only the arrival of Donald Cornwall. He had flown to an airfield north of Manhattan and driven to "Alcazar"

in a taxicab. Melicent ascertained that it was he from the top of the stairs and held back her almost unbearable feelings of delight long enough to slip a note she had already prepared underneath Hannah's door. The note read: "Donald has just come in and I am going down to see him."

Donald was taking off his coat. He was pale as a ghost and there was a large gauze bandage over his right temple. He looked up as he heard Melicent's footsteps, but he did not read her expression. She did not want him to do so. This chaotic present was no hour for the admission of love.

He said "Hello" and hesitated a fraction of a second, "Melicent."

"Hello," Melicent answered.

He nodded toward a room off the hall. "Could I talk to you for a moment before I see my aunt?"

She followed him through the wide doorway. He dropped into a chair with the instantaneous relaxation of one who is almost at the end of his physical resources. He bent his head forward in his hands. His fingers disappeared in his red hair and she could see a slow rise and fall of his shoulders, as he breathed. It required that much time for Melicent to gain full control of her varied emotions.

"Are you very much hurt?" she asked in a very gentle voice.

He lifted his head and looked at her with eyes that took some time in focusing on her question. "Hurt? Oh, this bandage? My parachute dropped me on a frozen field and I just got scratched a little when I was dragged across it."

"Oh!" Her breath sounded shivery after that.

"Is Aunt Hannah still awake?"

"I believe so."

"Is she expecting me to come right up?"

"No. I told her that I would see you first."

"Do you suppose I could have some coffee?"

"There will be some here in a minute. I have had coffee ready for you."

"Then the servants are still up?"

"Yes," she answered. "Several of them."

His eyes were on her again, introverted, haunted. "You know, I let him die."

"What do you mean?"

"I got those two parachutes."

"You bought them?"

"I rented them."

A servant appeared at the door with a tray. Melicent rose and drew a small table in front of her chair. The tray was set upon it and the servant left the room. Donald said no more until she had poured coffee, creamed and sugared it according to his mute nods, and handed it to him. She poured a cup for herself. He drank all of his portion and asked for another. After that he lit a cigarette.

"I am glad Aunt Hannah doesn't want me immediately, because I'd rather tell you all about it first. It has been pretty terrible, the whole thing. A sort of nightmare of pursuit."

"Pursuit?"

"I think so. We left New York in the morning, going down the freight elevator and getting into a different car from the one that took our baggage. I was tired and nervous. I hadn't slept any on the previous night. You know that. When we got in the Grand Central Station I had a feeling somebody was watching us. Maybe you know the feeling and maybe you don't. It's a damned unpleasant one."

He sipped his second cup of coffee and looked at her over the top of the cup.

"We took a train for Chicago. I kept walking up and down the aisles looking at the people and when I went to bed, I slept with a revolver at my hand. Uncle Theodore didn't say much. Sometimes he was excited and hopeful about things, and again in fits he was depressed and terrified. The meteorite obsessed him; when he talked, it was about that.

He could not be shaken from his idea that it was an actual messenger from his stars."

"Did you try to shake him from it?" asked Melicent.

"I did. Perhaps I shouldn't have; for nothing could have come out worse than what happened. Anyway, my attempt did no good. To him, the meteorite meant travel; so we kept on traveling, taking the first train from Chicago for San Francisco."

"You went there?"

"Yes. He had to keep on the move; and, of course, when you travel, you do make it harder for anybody, who's after you, to find you. On the western train, Uncle Theodore found an old gentleman to play cribbage with and I got some rest. When we got to Frisco, we stayed quiet two days. I was changing my clothes in my room, next to Uncle Theodore's, when I heard him on the phone. He'd called Priscilla Loring; and she had told him, now, to return.

"That didn't worry me much, because it might be a good move which our pursuers might not suspect."

"Wait, please," asked Melicent. "You knew you were pursued?"

"Knew?" repeated Donald. "No; I just felt it. But we'd both got more cheerful.

Traveling and the change had cheered us both up; and nothing yet had happened. We'd come the southern way so we went back the northern--that proved a mistake; for we ran into snowstorms in the mountain and got delayed. That's what did for us."

For a full minute, he said nothing and seemed to be gathering his thoughts for the recounting of the consequences. Melicent did not budge and her eyes never left his face.

"So we got back in Chicago only on the morning of the day upon which Priscilla Loring had told Uncle Theodore he must be again in New York. There was only one possible way to make it--to fly.

"I don't think there ever was a man so completely at odds with himself as Uncle Theodore that morning. He had to fly, if he was to accomplish the thing he was set on; and he hated to fly. He'd never been in an aeroplane in his life. The train was no good but he wanted to go on the train.

"Of course I got Priscilla Loring on the wire and persuaded her to tell him it was all right to take another day. And she did it. She played the game, I'll say that for her. But Uncle Theodore wouldn't believe her. He said she'd read the stars and told him twice what they said; and now she was changing it because she was human and afraid for him.

But he knew she couldn't really change what the stars said. She'd told him, before, that his salvation in an emergency was to take the bold course; so he'd be bold.

"After he'd rung off, he stalked about the room and jibbered at me. If I wouldn't fly with him, he'd fly alone. So I said, all right; we'll fly and take along parachutes. That idea put him almost out of his head; so I said, all right, we won't take along parachutes; and then he said we would take them; of course I called up an airport and engaged a special plane with special pilots; and arranged for chutes for us. Jumping in a parachute isn't much of a trick. It takes a lot of nerve but nature gives you the nerve if staying in the plane becomes a worse alternative.

"Uncle Theodore made me go over and over the job of how to use a parachute.

The plane was supposed to start at half-past eleven. We were out on the field at eleven but there was a lot of delay. One of the pilots didn't arrive until late and then they fussed around with the engines until I thought I'd go nutty with impatience. Finally everything was ready. It must have been nearly one o'clock. The pilots were regular commercial fellows and Uncle Theodore himself had spent an hour or so calling up about their references on the telephone. Before I left the hangar where they were issued, I strapped on my chute. Then I went out and helped Uncle Theodore into his. I am telling you all this because I've been telling it to myself over and over to see just where the crux of the matter lies. The plane taxied out onto the field. They brought us four boxes of lunch and set ours under our chairs. We went out to the plane with our parachutes on our backs, and I guess we were a source of considerable amusement to the people standing around.

Uncle Theodore got one of the pilots to rehearse him on using the parachute--how to jump, how to count, how to pull the ring and what to do when he got on the ground.

Anyway, we eventually climbed into the plane. When it took off, Uncle Theodore screamed just like a woman. I had to hold him in his seat to keep him from jumping out right away. We turned east. We went up to about four thousand feet and we made good time. The sun was shining and the country below looked nice. Most of it was covered with snow and there was a good stiff wind blowing the way we were going. It was warm in the cabin. The pilots were both perfectly matter of fact, but not Uncle Theodore. He was as white as a lily and every few minutes he got a spasm of shaking. I had my hands full from the start.

"It must have been three-thirty or four when I remembered the lunch and I thought it would calm him if he saw me eating. So I took out my box and began on a sandwich. It did seem to make him realize that normal things could happen four thousand feet up in the air and before long he took out his box. We were sitting side by side. When he took up the box I nodded and grinned at him, trying to reassure him and to applaud him for his calmness. It was a cardboard box like the ones they put cakes in and about the same size. He lifted the lid and opened the waxed paper around the food inside."

Donald's voice dropped so it was almost inaudible. "I swear that his eyes started right out of his head. They moved along mechanically, as if he were reading something, and in a fiftieth of a second I knew what he had found inside that box. Another message.

He just sat there holding the thing on his lap. I stood up and looked into the box. There it was. Written in big letters on a half sheet of paper and laid on top of his food: 'Dawn Enlivens a Traitor's Hates.'

"I stood there in the cabin of that plane for three or four minutes so damned scared I couldn't move. I couldn't have moved if the ship had gone into a nose dive. But it didn't. It just kept bearing straight ahead and when I got the courage to look through the window in front of the pilots, they seemed to be perfectly content. After that I didn't have any control over Uncle Theodore. The engines made so much noise I couldn't talk to him.

I sat there debating what to do. It was easy enough to assume that somebody had been in the plane and put the message in the lunch, and from that point that some person had monkeyed with the engine and maybe loosened up the landing gear so we'd crack up when we came down. Fussing with the engine or landing gear was the only idea I had. I didn't dare go up into the cockpit and tell the pilots to come down at the earliest opportunity, for the simple reason I wasn't sure that a wheel hadn't fallen off or something like that. I just sat in my seat and tried to figure out what the hell to do. I hardly dared look at Uncle Theodore at all. He had gone into a sort of glassy-eyed coma.

Even his shaking had stopped. When I finally did decide that something could be done, we were just beginning to move over the foothills of some part of the Appalachian Mountains. The ground underneath looked pretty tough. Woods with snow on them and farms here and there. I decided if I went up and told the pilots they better land right away and that they better plan to make their landing a crash landing, we might get away with it.

Then before I had the sense to do a thing, we slipped into the fog. It came so fast it frightened me. All around us on every side. You couldn't see the ground below any more and I knew the idea of landing was out for the time being. While we were in the fog one of the motors died. There were three of them. I could see the pilot who wasn't at the controls turn around and wave and grin and point as if to assure me that everything was going to be all right. A minute later he started out over some sort of a cat-walk to see what he could do about the motor. He didn't know why it had stopped, but I knew. I expected that the rest of them would also stop in a pretty short time. And with the fog underneath us and all around us, it looked as if the end were pretty near, not only for Uncle Theodore but for all four of us.

"It was at that particular instant that I saw Uncle Theodore at the door that led from the cabin of the plane to the outside. It hadn't occurred to me that he would know what had happened, but I saw that his eyes were fixed on the propeller, which was driven by the dead motor. It was swinging around very slowly. The engine had conked completely. I tried to go after Uncle Theodore, but I wasn't quick enough. He turned back one absolutely maniacal glance toward me, swung the door open and stepped out. I might have been three feet behind him and I didn't think at all, except to have an instantaneous flash that I ought to be with him whatever happened. I don't suppose I jumped a quarter of a second later. The door was still open and I went through it head first."

Donald hesitated. His face lost color at the memory and his voice became slightly uneven. "I had never jumped before, although I knew the rudiments. The ring was in my hand. There wasn't any sensation of falling, or motion, at all. I counted and pulled the ring. There was a terrific jerk on my shoulders and there I was, hanging in the air. I couldn't see the ground. I couldn't see the plane, although for a little while I thought I could hear it faintly. Then there was nothing. I was just standing still in a gray blanket.

Once or twice I hollered for Uncle Theodore on the chance he might be floating within ear-shot. There wasn't any answer. It seemed to me I hung in the air for half an hour and then, all of a sudden, I saw a patch of darkness underneath me. It shot toward me, became a frozen corn field, and in a second I hit it hard. The parachute fell over sideways. I was dragged along for several feet and then, all of a sudden, I stopped. The fog on the ground wasn't as thick as it had been in the air and there I was in the middle of a big field. I got up, got loose from the collapsed parachute and rubbed myself. I didn't notice the scratch on my head at all.

"I began to look around for Uncle Theodore, walking first in one direction and then in another. It must have been an enormous field, because I walked and walked without coming to the end of it and I couldn't see anything of the country around it on account of the fog. It wasn't dark, but the light was sullen and I knew it would be dark before so very long. I knew we'd jumped so close that he couldn't be very far away, so I went back to my parachute and began to walk in a spiral outward. I suppose that spiral was half a mile across when I saw him. He was dead, Melicent. His parachute never opened and he had died with his hand still clutching the ring. His fall burst open the envelope in which the parachute was contained and I saw why it had never opened. It had been pinned in with one of those enormous safety pins they use on horse blankets."

He did not go on for so long that she said, "Yes?" in a very gentle voice. Then he looked up.

"There is no necessity to dwell on the fact that Uncle Theodore was almost unrecognizable. But I did one thing. I took the blanket pin out of his bursted parachute pack. I don't know yet why I did it. I took it carefully in my handkerchief on the chance they might be able to find fingerprints. But I took it partly because I had arranged to get the parachute for Uncle Theodore and I was afraid if it was generally known that the parachute I got was pinned in, it would get me into so much difficulty that I wouldn't be able to do anything more about finding out who put that pin there. Are those good reasons, Melicent, or was that something very wrong?"

"They are very good reasons."

"I hope so. It wasn't that I was afraid of being accused of something I knew I didn't do. It was just that I couldn't stand the uselessness of being accused of such a thing.

It would merely waste time and give the person who did it a better chance to cover his tracks."

He looked at her with eyes into which had suddenly come renewed life and purpose. "You see, that safety pin is the first really absolute and actual proof of murder that we have for any of the Cornwalls. Together with the copper spider that was in Uncle Everitt's hand, it is the only tangible object that we can show for the death of four people." He reached into his inside pocket, withdrew a handkerchief and opened it. It contained a steel safety pin, five or six inches in length. "That's all it took to murder Uncle Theodore. Now, what do you think of it?"

Melicent gazed at him steadily.

"I think," she replied, "that you had better mention this to no one else besides me; and especially not to your Aunt Hannah--if she allows you to see her."

"You mean, Melicent--"

"I mean that, going back over all the deaths in your family, you could not explain that pin to anyone else in the world, probably--except me."

CHAPTER XIV

MELICENT returned to Miss Cornwall's door. It was nearly an hour, she suddenly realized, since she had slipped her note in to Hannah saying that Donald had returned and she had gone to see him; but no sooner had she halted again at the door than Miss Cornwall hailed her: "Melicent?"

"Yes."

"You have seen my nephew? Answer me, verbally, only yes or no."

"Yes."

"Write briefly what he told you; be careful how you word it. Slip it under the door." Melicent wrote: "Your nephew has arrived safe, except for some scratches made by landing from his parachute leap. Your brother was killed because his parachute had been tampered with." She added, "No one knows by whom." And she slipped it under the door.

There was no acknowledgment and soon Melicent went away. For a few moments, she merely wandered through the great, grim castle, struggling with her dreads.

Murder--unquestioned murder--again had been done; and if she told her employer, by whom she was completely trusted, all the facts which had come to her, would Hannah Cornwall doubt that Donald had put that deadly pin in the parachute? No matter what Hannah would believe or doubt, Melicent fiercely told herself that Hannah was in no condition to consider evidence to-night; therefore, no wrong was done by concealing it from her. Yet--yet--Melicent could not decide what to do.

She went back to Donald who asked her: "Does Aunt Hannah want to see me?"

"Not to-night."

"I'm as glad. I am absolutely all in. It was grand of you to wait up for me." He stood and looked around the room. "This is a weird place, isn't it? 'Alcazar.' You'd think that under the circumstances Aunt Hannah would want to go to any other house in the world than this."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Psychological reasons, maybe. Doesn't it remind you of the kind of place in which Pale Horses would prance, haunting these stone corridors. It's a ghostly old fortress but--say, what's the matter?"

An unwilling, strained sob escaped Melicent. She trembled from head to foot and commenced to cry. "Don't say things like that! Don't! Please don't! I can't stand them any longer!"

There was a brief instant during which he stood before her. Then he sat down beside her and wrapped one long arm around her. With his other hand, he patted her head.

"Melicent, old kid, don't cry. I didn't mean to frighten you. I guess that kind of grimness is a little bit insane. Please don't cry."

She began to sniffle. "I--I--I am sorry. I just lost--control--of myself-for a minute."

"Of course you did. I am sorry and I apologize. That was a dirty trick." She felt him brushing her hair away from her eyes and holding her shoulder in the cup of his hand. He pushed her head back. He bent over her. He kissed her long and ardently on the mouth. After that he stepped away from her with quick fright. "Good Lord! I didn't mean to do that! Honestly, I didn't! Couldn't help it. Terribly sorry."

The eyes Melicent turned up to him were wet with tears but, nevertheless, they laughed at his confusion. He read the emotion they contained with absolute amazement.

"You didn't mind?" he asked uncertainly.

"No," she answered. "I didn't mind."

He said one great, amazed word. "Melicent!"

But she shook her head, still laughing. "Not now. You mustn't kiss me again to-night. Not to-night." The smile faded slowly and for a long time they looked at each other with silent wonder, with profound tenderness.

It was Melicent who first averted her gaze. "You better go to your room. I think the butler is still up. It is one o'clock. We will see each other in the morning, every morning. You mustn't look so disappointed and hurt. You've got to remember the things we will have to do in the next few days. It is very late. I haven't even told you what's happened here at 'Alcazar.'"

"Has anything happened here?" He asked the question as if he had discovered a new power by which he would thwart all untoward accidents in the vicinity of Melicent.

"Oh, nothing like the sort of thing you are thinking of. Only, we learned about the aeroplane accident over the radio. And the whole thing frightened your Aunt Hannah so badly that she's locked in her room and won't speak to anybody. You can only communicate with her by notes pushed under the door. You see, she's afraid somebody will speak a five-word message."

There was another long pause in which the young man and the young woman looked at each other. Then, side by side, they walked into the hall. He took her arm but it was she who helped him up the stairs rather than he who assisted her. When they had covered half the distance along the slow slope of the stone steps he said, "By the way, have you seen Reese at all?"

"I saw him for a little while when he was arranging to get servants to open up this place."

"Did you have any chance to talk to him?"

"Some."

They were in the hall. "Your room is the third on the right. The door's open and one of the servants is there."

"The room with the light on?"

"Yes."

She stopped at her room and he stood in front of her. A bright glow had come into his face. Neither of them moved.

"Just once," he said at last, in a husky voice.

Melicent made no answer at all, except to incline her face toward his.

A little later she closed her door and turned the key in it, and Donald Cornwall walked dizzily down the hall of the great castle.

Melicent opened her eyes with mingled emotions. First, she remembered how Donald had kissed her and that filled her with ecstasy; then she recollected the details of the death of Theodore--and the parachute pin--and she started with guilt. What would she do about that? Should she do anything?

Before she had gone to bed, she had written down a more complete account of the aeroplane accident for Miss Cornwall and still she had refrained from inserting any mention of the pin in the parachute. Melicent reread the account when she had dressed and, leaving it as it was, she went to Miss Cornwall's room and slipped it under the door.

Then she knocked.

"Who is it?" Miss Cornwall's voice was cracked and querulous.

"Melicent. "

"Very well. Don't say any more. But bring me some breakfast. Go down to the kitchen yourself, squeeze the juice of two oranges, open a fresh box of cereal, open a fresh bottle of cream and make coffee from the coffee in the servants' supplies."

Fifteen minutes later Melicent had performed those operations. She brought the tray up to Miss Cornwall's room, knocked on the door, and was admitted. Hannah's face was streaked and lined. Her hands shook and she had lost her upright posture. It seemed to Melicent that during the night her gray hair had turned lighter. She took the tray, stared suspiciously at the food upon it, and then began to eat almost with resignation. She sat with her back to the windows and the only comment she made during the whole meal was upon that fact. "I thought of getting the windows painted but I decided that if I keep my back toward them I will be all right. I have drawn the blind up across the one that looks out on New York City. The chance of another electric sign being turned on there is one I won't take. I will see nothing, hear nothing, do nothing."

Melicent nodded her head in agreement and tried to make her eyes express sympathy. She could not speak, because that had been the command of Hannah Cornwall.

When the meal had been finished, she took the tray.

"I suppose if I want anything I'll have to do without it. But I wish you would come up here and knock three times on my door every hour during the day. I f I don't answer, break the door down. The reason I am speaking so slowly to you is that I have to be sure I don't give myself the message. I have no idea how long I will stay here, or what I will do afterward, but for the present I am relying absolutely on you. I suppose it is unnecessary to say that if this affair terminates successfully I will see that you never have a financial worry during the rest of your life. I presume Donald will make every effort to find out what caused that parachute to fail. And I am living in the hope that the discovery of that fact will put an end to the whole dreadful fate that has taken four of my family and that now threatens me."

Melicent took up the pad and wrote: "Yes, he is working very hard. I understand from the servants that he called Mr. Reese early this morning. He'll be here soon."

"Have you seen Donald to-day?" Miss Cornwall asked.

"Not yet," Melicent wrote, and the pencil scrawl conveyed no iota of the emotion which accompanied her expectation of seeing Donald in a very few minutes.

When Miss Cornwall had finished, Melicent took the tray and went out. She carried in her mind a picture of the old woman, sitting in an upholstered chair, with her back to the light, a revolver in her lap, waiting, listening, dreading.

To what ominous and final ends the affairs of the Cornwall family were rushing!

Melicent went down to have her own breakfast after she left Miss Cornwall. The meal to which she sat down was very similar to that she had prepared for her employer, and as she began to eat she felt the sharp doubt that she had known many times in the past--perhaps she was sitting down to food that had been prepared for Miss Comwall, or perhaps the time would come when the murderer of the Cornwall family would think that she knew too much. Could that-- could that be Donald? She discarded that thought with an effort of simple courage.

She had finished her bacon and eggs when Donald joined her. Over night his entire attitude toward her had changed. It was something she could realize without defining, and although he did not speak of what had happened to both of them so recently, the indications of it were in his eyes, in a certain tenderness of his voice, and in a certain straightforward and possessive manner which he had adopted toward her. It was more Melicent's matter-of-fact greeting than his own intention which prohibited any display of affection at the breakfast table.

"How do you feel to-day?" she asked.

"Much better, although I am pretty stiff. I must have taken quite a jouncing from that parachute, but at the time I didn't seem to notice it. How are you?"

"I'm all right."

"Did you get some sleep?"

Melicent nodded. "Some."

"That's good. We both need clear heads. Mr. Reese will be here soon."

"I heard you had called him."

"Yes, I expect him almost any minute. How's Aunt Hannah this morning?"

"She's all right."

"Did she ask to see me?"

"No."

To their ears came the sound of the bell that was rung at the front door. "That must be Mr. Reese now," Donald said. "I'd like you to talk to him with me, if you will."

"Certainly."

They left the table and found Mr. Reese standing in the hall. Melicent was flooded by a sense of relief. Here at last was Mr. Reese, a lawyer, a man of the world and a man of the outside world coming to participate in the final attempt to baffle the fate hovering over all the Cornwall affairs. In all that he had done previously--or in all that he had not done--he had been guided or influenced by Miss Cornwall; for he was her lawyer, accustomed to accommodate his activities to her interests and demands. And if he had so far accomplished little or nothing, Melicent suspected that it was because Hannah Cornwall had refused to let him act as he wished. Now, however, since affairs were almost entirely in the hands of Melicent and Donald, they could do as they chose.

Mr. Reese's greeting to them was urbane and it had a cheerful quality which no words spoken under the pall of the atmosphere of "Alcazar" could quite attain. He shook Donald's hand.

"I'm glad to see both of you looking so well," he began. "Considering the conditions which have surrounded you, I think you have stood the strain very well. It would be scarcely correct for me to offer my condolences to you, Mr. Cornwall. The business is a good deal more grim than such amenities permit."

"It is," agreed Donald. "If you'd be good enough to step into this room." He led the way from the hall and stopped at the door for Melicent to enter first. "I have asked Miss Waring to sit with us."

Once they had seated themselves close together and closed all the doors, polite formalities were dropped. Mr. Reese bent forward in his chair, his old but virile face thrust forward, his elbows on his knees. "I don't want to harrow either of you two people unduly," he said. "I have, as you know, been pursuing or directing certain investigations--

as wide and as searching investigations as I felt myself able to pursue and not throw the whole affairs of your family, Mr. Cornwall, into the hands of the public authorities and put you all at the mercy of public prosecutors--and the police. Within that limit, I assure you I have done everything that I deemed could be done."

"I am sure that you have," Donald said impatiently.

Mr. Reese caught his tone. "I appreciate that you must be impatient to have my report, to learn what I have learned. I have ascertained several suggestive facts; but it is impossible yet for me to piece them together."

"Perhaps I can," returned Donald, abruptly. "What are they?"

The older man held up his hand. "I will give them to you in a moment; and I will give them much more intelligently if, first, I know everything that you know. Much has happened since I saw you; and perhaps I have not all the earlier occurrences accurately in mind in their right order. It is essential that I know, now, everything that you both know."

"

All right," agreed Donald. "I will bring you up to date." And he began in detail, the account of Theodore's death, which he had previously given to Melicent.

As he neared the point in his narrative, at which he had told her of the blanket-pin which he had removed from the parachute, Melicent felt herself become weak, wondering whether he would waver. Quivering with excitement, she did not know whether she wanted him to tell it or omit it; but when, at the point, his voice went on relating the entire circumstance, her heart leaped with a triumphant relief and she was quieter.

She looked to the lawyer to see what effect Donald's admission had upon him and she saw none. Mr. Reese was too old, too experienced in the emergencies of others to betray his own verdict while hearing a case. He made neither interruption nor comment until Donald had finished; then he simply inquired: "That is all?"

Donald wiped his forehead. "Yes; I think that's all. In order that you may be sure that you have all the knowledge that we have of the previous occurrences, I ask Miss Waring to go over with you everything that she has seen or that has come to her. She has been in what I may describe as the central position among us all," Donald smiled a bit ruefully. "Do it for me, will you, Melicent?"

And Melicent did it.

The lawyer and Donald Cornwall sat for almost a full hour listening. During this hour, Donald spoke not at all; he merely watched her. The lawyer spoke only to ask questions to make clearer details he did not understand.

Into that hour was crowded the narrative of a young girl who had taken a strange position which brought her face to face with a series of appalling circumstances which she endeavored to detail without passing judgment upon them.

Especially she endeavored not to pass judgment upon Donald, not to color her account either to exonerate or accuse him. She could not accuse him; she could not! And she was too proud, too loyal to him to conceal or alter any circumstance which might seem unfavorable to him. As she approached critical points in her story and at moments when Mr. Reese asked her, in his cold, precise voice, "Where was Donald Cornwall at this time?" she answered honestly and fearlessly.

She could feel Donald watching her, as she had watched him when he told of the pin in the parachute; and so she went through to the end.

At last Mr. Reese rose from the chair in which he had been sitting. "God! What a story! What a life you have led! Young lady, if I'd had an inkling of the sort of thing you were confronting, I wouldn't have hired you if I could have offered you a hundred thousand a year."

"Then," said Melicent quietly, "I'm glad you had no inkling."

The direction of his thoughts became less personal. "I have been following you, trying to find whom you, yourself, suspect as the murderer--or one of the murderers. I could not feel that you suspected, strongly, anyone."

"I don't," said Melicent slowly. "Through it all, I have tried to see who was to blame, who could be suspected, who could be proved guilty, but I can't settle--for any length of time--upon anyone."

"Yet you have suspected several, temporarily." Melicent nodded. "Sometimes I have suspected almost--myself."

Mr. Reese turned to Donald. "Whom have you suspected?"

"Two hundred millions of dollars is stake enough, I suppose, for any crime or series of crimes. It is stake enough to stir almost any man," Donald returned. "So I have suspected a good many people. I even suspected you." His eyes met those of the lawyer candidly. "A day or two ago, I could have sworn it was that astrologer, Priscilla Loring--

or at least people associated with her. Then that idea washed out. This morning when I woke up, I found myself thinking of Lydia. She's in ill health and her mind takes queer slants. She's insulated herself, you might say, to ordinary human sympathies; you can't tell what a mind like hers might do--or direct. Her very physical helplessness might make her more defiantly determined to outlive all the rest and make her more merciless toward them. Yet--" he halted, looking at Melicent. "What is it! Melicent?"

"I've thought of her," said Melicent. "But I don't now."

"Neither do I," admitted Donald.

"But you both," pursued the lawyer, "suspect people and not fate."

"Fingers put that pin in that parachute," said Donald.

"But fate may use fingers. I mean," explained the lawyer, "it is possible that Theodore Cornwall's parachute was pinned by some moronic or perverted person who could have had no idea whom it would kill. Fate might have simply seen that he got that parachute."

"And also put the message in his lunch box?"

The lawyer nodded. "Yes; there's a flaw there. I was merely admitting all possibilities. There are acts of God and acts of devils; but the devils, at least, can usually be reduced to human form. Your father's death, Donald, does not lend itself to further investigation. He was poisoned, you think; and in that place where he died, any native might have been the agent of anyone. You have no evidence but the suspicion of poison--

and the five-word message which preceded his death.

"So we come to Everitt and the five-word message sent to him; and the little copper spider found in his hand. I merely enunciate what is in the minds of both of you when I tell you that probably--no one can prove it now--Everitt Cornwall met his death in this manner:

"Electrocution was prepared for him. Someone, anticipating his coming, put a wire between the tiles into the bathroom beside the tub. You," Reese looked at Melicent,

"saw the hole in the plaster in the adjoining room. It was necessary to make a hole there; but after it was made, the wire could be pushed between two tiles on the other side and make no noticeable hole. I think, then, that the copper spider was lightly soldered to the wire and the wire pulled tight so that the spider seemed to be standing on the tile. The wire was then connected with the light socket in the next room and, at the proper time, the current turned on.

"Everitt Cornwall could be counted upon to touch the spider, if he noticed it after he got into the bath; and that is the time he would notice it. He would be standing or sitting in water--immersed in it--thoroughly grounded and so was instantly killed.

"The powerful electric shock had a convulsive action upon the muscles causing his fingers to close on the spider. Possibly he plucked the spider from the wire as he died; possibly the wire had to be pulled away from the other side. At any rate, it was withdrawn; and as soon as possible afterwards, the house was burned. I believe this is what happened."

"So do I," said Donald; and Melicent, on her part, nodded. "Obviously, this series of events required the presence of the murderer in the house at the time."

"Obviously," agreed Donald. "You will remember I was not far away and many strangers, whom you, yourself, supplied, were in the house."

"Also," pursued the lawyer, imperturbably, "either the principal or a confederate was in New York a short time earlier. For the five-word telegram was sent from there."

"You, of course, were in the city and I came from New York just after the electrocution, you remember," Donald reminded Reese.

"But you could not, personally, have sent the message," returned Reese. "For the sender was completely forgotten by the girl who took it. You could not have been."

"Thank you for that," acknowledged Donald.

"I am not exonerating you. I exonerate, now, nobody."

"I was thanking you for believing I would not have been forgotten," Donald corrected him.

"Now the death of Alice Cornwall--of Alice Cornwall Wilbur--leads us into greater difficulties. I have had made, with the aid of the state department and of the Belgian authorities, an exhaustive examination of the character of the fatal fog. I cannot decide for myself whether it was made deadly by nature, by accident, or deliberately by poisons injected in it by man.

"Of all the victims of it, I can find none other beside Alice Cornwall who had been threatened. If it was made lethal to destroy those who died, I can find no reason for anyone desiring the death of any of the victims--except her. The spread of such a poison throughout the Domrey valley in order to murder one woman, seems inconceivable.

However, I have your word that Alice had just received one of the fatal messages. We will leave the mist for the moment; its implications are still unsolved.

"Let us come to the meteorite which flew into Theodore Cornwall's room. You, Donald, had it examined by the geologists at the university; later, as you ordered, it was delivered to me; and I also had it examined. The report made to me concurred with the report made to you. There is no possible question that it is a bit of meteoric iron; it was indeed a scrap of a star which found its way into Theodore Cornwall's room--and which might have struck and killed him. There is considerable question, however, as to whether God or man sent it on its way. Both the astronomers whom I have consulted--and who, finally, I brought to Theodore Cornwall's apartment--are agreed that it would be practically impossible for a meteorite to strike with the small violence of the iron that flew into that room.

"It struck very hot, I understand; and meteorites become white hot from their flight through the air but yours, I believe, flew no farther than from the opposite roof.

Somewhere nearby it had been heated and then, by some catapult-like instrument, it was hurled through the window."

"But," Melicent interrupted, "it was a real meteorite, you said."

"Exactly; one that had fallen somewhere else on the earth and had been cool for perhaps a hundred years--until a murderer, having a very special mission to perform, obtained it and heated it and hurled it in."

"You, too, believe that, Mr. Reese?"

"I have to believe that," replied the lawyer simply, "or to believe that the sky is actually after these people. There remains the fog to bear out that theory; but I can't credit it. Human hands are against us--and human brains--amazingly merciless, calculating brains. Think how they drove Theodore through terror to his death. He was swayed by his stars; they knew it; and they decided to toss a bit of a star into his room. By chance it might strike him and kill him; but if it only fell to the floor, yet it could scarcely fail to affect him. We all know how it drove him to his death."

"Which would not have occurred, however," Donald reminded, "if the parachute had not been pinned."

"I said," agreed the lawyer, "that we were dealing with human hands and brains and purposes. Have either of you ever considered whether the purposes, at least, might not be Hannah's? I've known her better than any of your other aunts and uncles, and better than your father, Donald. Year after year, she's gone on fearing for her life, doubling her dreads, doubling her determination to outlive the rest. I've hired new servants for her every year and helped her carry out the schemes she perpetually devised to protect herself. The basis of her fear was always that one of her sisters or brothers--or people connected with them--would put her out of the way. Suppose in her mind, recently not quite sane, she became so obsessed with this idea that she came to believe that she could protect herself only by making away with the others. She would devise a scheme of murder in self-defense. It is possible that from the servants whom I have hired for her, year after year, and who have been flowing through her house that she found some who fitted into her scheme of assassination in self-defense. She has always drawn and kept at hand great sums in cash. And what could she not promise to them, if her schemes succeeded!"

"You speak," cried Melicent, "as though you were sure she formed such schemes!"

"Are you sure she hasn't?"

"But she's H--she, herself, is H in the sequence D EAT H. And D and E and A and T are gone and it has come to her."

"Who said so?" countered the lawyer. Someone noticed that five of the six members of her family had names, the initials of which combined spelled death; could she not have noticed this too? If the family started to die in that order, it would be logical to believe that she would be the fifth, and hence all suspicion would be averted from her and possibly directed toward Lydia, whose name did not occur in the sequence. Do you get my point?"

"Yes."

"It would leave her to the end, unsuspected; she would be the one to be defended, not to be feared."

Again Melicent broke in. "If you could see her--but she will see no one but me--

you could not possibly speak of her as one to be feared."

"Not in person; very likely not," agreed the lawyer. "It is most improbable that she, in person, could have committed any violent deed; but she may have motivated others to do them for her. And now, perhaps, she could not stop them, if she would. Great crimes occur in that way. Someone conceives a scheme not completely picturing, at the same time, the consequences of its execution. But events are started; they cannot be stayed; they seize the stage and run on and on. Subordinate hands become more savage and merciless and at last put the principal in their power. . . . I define the possibility in such detail because, in this extremity, we must consider any hypothesis. You, Miss Waring, have been almost constantly with Miss Cornwall; you can tell me whether you have assembled any evidence to sustain such a presumption."

Melicent slowly shook her head. "Of course her brother Everitt's death occurred shortly after he arrived to visit her; then she went to visit her sister Alice, the fog came, but Miss Cornwall escaped. She brought us all back to visit her brother Theodore; and we all know what followed. However, I have never had any evidence that she is in communication with anyone, unknown to us, who might be acting against her brothers and sisters. She has criticized severely the other members of her family; but that is all."

"Of course an arrangement might have been with some agent, not now connected with the household, before you were originally engaged," the lawyer said. "And there might have been subsequent communication without your learning of it. She is alone, she sends you away whenever she wishes." Reese nodded regretfully. "I wish Granger had stayed. He could have supplemented you in watching her. But I presume the whole thing was too much for him. He came into my office after he returned from Belgium and told me he couldn't stand the job he had. Then he went down to Georgia to be with his mother, who was ill."

"Who was Granger?" Melicent asked. "I remember you told me I could have implicit confidence in him."

Mr. Reese started toward the hall and then stopped. "He was a young chap who came to my office looking for a job a long time ago. He worked for me several years and studied law at night. I learned to depend upon him. But he failed his bar examinations and that discouraged him. He left my employment. Last fall, just about the time Hannah Cornwall was due to change servants, he showed up again, looking for work. It occurred to me that it would be valuable to have someone I knew in Hannah's house, so I brought him along. He expressed great admiration for you, Miss Waring. It is clear, of course, that the difficulty he found in attending Miss Cornwall developed from the fact that he became emotionally attached to you; and you did not reciprocate. You have not heard from him at all since he left?"

"Only the letter which I have mentioned to you," Melicent said.

"I am surprised, remembering how he referred to you when I last saw him. Now I assume I know everything you know; and I have kept nothing from you. If Miss Cornwall will not see me, I had better return to town. Theodore's affairs, of course, must be attended to."

With that, Mr. Reese stepped into the hall, bid them good-by and a moment later they heard the sound of his car moving away from the castle. Donald looked at Melicent.

"I ought to drive in town this morning to make arrangements for Uncle Theodore's funeral. I hate to leave you." He sighed. "I suppose that by to-morrow the house will be full of police and we will both be watched and suspected, and maybe it's for the best.

Perhaps we were foolish not to have had the police from the very first. Anyway, I'll try to be back by early afternoon. I'd give a lot to know what Mr. Reese really thinks about the whole thing. I may drop in at his office." He opened the door of a small closet, put on his coat, took his hat in his hand and left the hall.

Melicent walked up the stairs. Her mind was in complete chaos.

She knocked on Hannah Cornwall's door.

"Who is it?"

"Miss Waring."

"Come in."

A certain amount of sunlight came through the tall windows that looked over the Hudson. The day outside was crisp and cold. Melicent picked up her pad and wrote, "Mr.

Reese was here. He has just left."

Hannah said, "Give me the facts."

Melicent began to write down the story of the interview, leaving out their suspicion of herself, but admitting freely that she had broken her promise of silence and discussed the mystery of the deaths with the lawyer.

Hannah, a shadow of herself, moved fretfully around the room while she waited for the preparation of the document. No one knew, no one could know, what thoughts, what alarms, what terrors stirred in her wretched soul. She had ceased almost to be a human being, and she lived from minute to minute, hour to hour, with the sole purpose of stretching out that progression of time until safety was somehow assured. To win that safety she had given up definite effort of logical mental process. She stirred back and forth in the ancestral bedroom.

By and by a continuous sound outside the house attracted her restless attention. It drew her gaze through the window and up to the blue sky. The stretch of sky visible was the only thing outside her room on which she had dared to focus her attention. And as she looked into it, she saw an aeroplane there.

She stopped in the center of the room and watched the plane with stupid curiosity.

It was following no fixed course, but turned, spun and gyrated in a variety of complicated maneuvers. She watched it the more intently because it was the first glimpse of life outside her room which she had had in many hours.

Suddenly smoke belched from the aeroplane. A great streak of it across the blue sky. For an instant she thought that it had caught fire, but the smoke stopped and hung in the air, a straight, horizontal line. The plane whirled. The sun flashed upon it and it became a glittering dot as it went back to the place where the smoke had started. Again came the rush of cloud from the plane. This time the line was curved, so that together with the first one which still hung in the air it made a figure not unlike a tightly drawn bow. Perhaps Hannah Cornwall had never seen skywriting before. Certainly she did not recognize that the bow of smoke in the sky was also a letter "D."

Rapidly the plane continued to lay these streaks of smoke, moving like a busy insect in a garden. The whole maneuver interested Hannah and rested her mind. Her instinctive caution caused her to move away from the window; but when she had done so, she reasoned that, since the aeroplane was not even nearly overhead, it could not drop anything to hurt her. She had shut herself in so long. The plane, dodging about so, was interesting.

She returned to the window and pushed it open. It was a casement window and it swung silently on its hinges under the impulse of her hands as--she clung to it, turning to look up, daring only to look into the sky, avoiding even a glance down.

A word stood in the sky! A word which she read before she knew it. A word beginning with D; and next it another word, beginning with E and next it a gigantic A.

She could not stop herself from reading; she could not at once even close her eyes. There were words--the frightful, fatal words warning her of death standing above her in the sky itself!

Perhaps the horror of the uselessness of all her precautions paralyzed her; perhaps she was held helpless, fascinated by the hideous ingenuity of the scheme. Perhaps both influences acted together. But at last, it seems, she shut her eyes; and dizziness came to her. She did not scream. Perhaps, in her paralysis, she could not. Eyes shut, she balanced half out the window, clutching the edge of the casement sash which swung out farther with her weight. And still she made no sound nor opened her eyes.

And thus she was when Melicent saw her. Melicent, obediently writing at the desk, had been absorbed in her record, aware only that Miss Cornwall had opened the window. All that had passed had been in utter silence.

Melicent jumped up; she cried out and she ran for the window. Too late.

For Miss Cornwall's hand had slipped from the sash; she caught at the outside stone sill; but there was ice upon it. Her balance was gone. She made a little shuffling sound, as she slid over the window sill and she began the sheer fall to the frozen river far below. Perhaps even yet she did not open her eyes; but there came to Melicent one wild, desperate, ear-splitting shriek.

Melicent leaned far out the window. One look down. Enough. Melicent looked up and words stared at her from the sky.

Words shredded and torn by the breezes yet words beginning with D and E and A and T and H. The five fatal words of the Cornwalls!

"Decensy," Melicent made out the first word; and with her reading of it something leaped within her to overtop even the horror of the little heap, which had been Hannah Cornwall, on the ice below. For, with the last message of murder, the murderer was betrayed. She knew! Suddenly she knew!

She ran from the room, screaming for Donald.

CHAPTER XV

NO one made answer. No one was near the door. For an instant, in her horrified panic, she turned back to lock the door before she realized that there no longer existed any reason to guard that room. Miss Cornwall was gone from it; Miss Cornwall was, undoubtedly, dead.

It was that, indeed, which she had been running to announce; and to avenge! For the murderer of the Cornwalls was overhead, in the air.

She could hear the drum of his engine and air screw as he completed his last word written in the sky. He could scarcely have seen the fall from the window; he could not know that, already, his purpose was accomplished. Miss Cornwall was dead; but overhead, he twisted and turned in the bright winter sky, writing the last letters of the message in his streamers of smoke.

Melicent could hear him plainly through the open window, but she could not return to the window to look up at him; she must go out and pursue him. And she must tell Donald and the servants that Miss Cornwall was dead.

She ran again from the door, leaving it open behind her.

A maid met her.

"Miss Cornwall has fallen! She has fallen from her window!" Melicent cried.

"She's on river's edge; down there. Get men and go down and get her. Where's Mr.

Cornwall?"

"Fallen?" gasped the maid. "Out the window? Miss Waring!"

"Listen to me!" commanded Melicent, seizing and shaking her. "Where's Mr.

Cornwall; do you know?"

"Mr. Cornwall's gone. He drove away just a minute ago. I saw him."

"Get help and go down to the river's edge. Miss Cornwall's there!" Melicent repeated to her; and she released the girl and, herself, Melicent ran down to the courtyard.

A little car was standing there; whose, Melicent neither knew nor cared. Perhaps it belonged to Alcazar; perhaps it was some tradesman's. It was a coupe, empty and with the key in the lock. Melicent jumped in and pressed the starter and the engine immediately caught.

Melicent looked out and up. The aeroplane, without its trail of smoke, was setting off to the west. Behind it, over the river, its words floated in the still sky. Melicent did not look back at them. She had set the car in motion and was spinning down the drive which led from Alcazar to the main highway. Its direction followed, fairly enough, the path taken by the aeroplane. She was in "high" and the foot throttle was pressed to the floor; but the aeroplane gained on her.

Her direction turned. There was nothing she could do about it; she had to follow the only road, though it veered her away from the course of the aeroplane, which was going farther and farther ahead anyway.

Now she came out upon the main road; and she had to choose between a vain pursuit of the aeroplane and a chance to overtake Donald; for he, she knew, must have made the turn here toward the city.

Melicent scarcely hesitated; she swerved to the left and, with horn clattering her cry for room to pass--to pass--she raced toward the city. There was an intersection and fate favored her for the light burned green just in time.

She headed the pack past the light and the cement was clear for a mile. On her right, far away, the silver aeroplane which had spelled the death message in the sky was nearly lost to sight. She came upon another pack of cars held up at a crossing and she ran out upon the soft shoulder of the road to the right.

"Melicent!" a voice hailed her; Donald's voice; and there he was in a roadster. The light before them changed but he did not move his car; he leaped from it and came to hers, letting them all honk behind him.

She sank back in her seat, staring at him. How to tell him? What to tell him?

"They've killed your aunt!" she said to him, as the honking ceased and the cars, which had been blocked, began to circle his and speed on. "They wrote the message in the sky; and she saw it and fell from her window!"

"What's this?" he said, opening the door of her car.

She slipped over on the seat and he came in beside her. They were alone now beside the road except for his empty car and the machines spinning by.

"They've killed your aunt!"

"Aunt Hannah, you mean?"

"Yes; Miss Cornwall. . . . It was Granger, Donald. He wrote the message in the sky with an aeroplane. Granger--you remember him."

"Of course I remember him. But how do you know; what message did he write? . .

. What's all this?"

He caught her and held her between his hands to steady her; and she dung to him while she stammered out what had happened.

They were no longer alone. The light had turned red to them; cross traffic rushed both ways before them; and halted cars were at their side. A driver saw that Donald's car was empty and he shouted to them.

"How do you know it was Granger in the sky?" Donald demanded of Melicent, ignoring everyone else.

"He misspelled 'decency.' He did it in a letter to me; and he did it in the sky. 'Sy,'

he spelled it both times. He liked to use the word. It was the D word of this message."

Other drivers yelled at them.

Donald dropped his hands. Melicent shivered.

"I've got to go back," she said "I don't know what's been done; or if anything's been done. I've got to go back--if you'll follow the plane."

"I'll follow the plane," promised Donald. "You don't remember any markings?"

Melicent shut her eyes to see it more clearly. "It was silver; a monoplane, with open cockpit. No markings--nothing that I remember. But I saw that word--I saw it in the sky--sy, just as he spelled it to me."

The shouting beside them again had ceased; the cars were spinning by. For a brief moment, Donald held her once more. "All right," he said very gently. "Go back. I'll try to trace that plane."

"But don't fly again yourself doing it!"

He kissed her and stepped from her car. "Road's clear now. Turn 'round."

"Donald, don't take chances!"

For answer he started his car, swerving it out upon the crossroad to the west and she had a wild impulse to follow him; but she completed her turn and headed back toward Alcazar.

Slowly she drove. The need for heedless haste was over. Almost deliberately she delayed; what was being done at Alcazar, she hoped, would be done before she returned.

It was better, far better, that servants who had not been constantly with Miss Cornwall--

who had not learned to have feelings for her--should do the grim duty demanded now. So she returned but slowly, and leaving the highway, retraced the winding road to the top of the palisades.

Granger was the murderer of the Cornwalls! Or one of the murderers! Could he--

could anyone, alone, have accomplished all? The poisoning of Donald's father. One, alone, might have managed that. The electrocution of Everett. Yes; Granger, alone, might have done that. It required chiefly unchallenged access to the house; and Granger had been there as a guard! It required, in addition, no more equipment than a pick to pierce the plaster from the unused room beside the bath, a length of light cord to reach to an electric socket and the little copper spider to attract Everett Cornwall's curiosity. Yes; Granger, alone, might have accomplished all that.

There was, besides, the message which had come to Everett from New York. It had been filed, Mr. Reese had learned, in New York that morning after Mr. Reese and Granger and she had arrived at Blackcroft. That fact pointed to an accomplice. It was no surprise to Melicent to consider an accomplice in that crime. Her mind went to the Belgian fog. Could Granger and an accomplice--only one--have contrived that frightful poisoning of the mist?

Granger, of course, had been present before the fall of the fatal fog. He had escaped it, personally, because he had driven Miss Cornwall and Donald to Brussels and so was not in the Domrey valley when the death took its toll.

And then Granger had gone away; or been sent away, for Miss Cornwall had discharged him and packed him off for making love to her, Melicent, just before Lydia Cornwall and Ahdi Vado arrived.

Melicent had no more quiet for retrospect; she had reached, again, Alcazar.

A man was at the gate to meet her. A manservant, he was, Sibley, by name, whom Melicent knew as the butler employed by Mr. Reese but who had seemed more of a factotum.

Sibley had assumed, from some source, authority in the brief time since Melicent had driven away. He thrust in his hand and grasped her by the arm as she stopped the car in the courtyard.

"So," he said, "you decided to come back."

"Of course I came back," returned Melicent, not making out the reason for his change of manner and tone. "Miss Cornwall--she's been--brought to the house?"

"The Baroness Strang wants you," announced Sibley. "If you had not returned, you would have been pursued. You were to be brought to her as soon as anyone found you."

"Found me?" gasped Melicent and, staring into the man's eyes, she realized for the first time the inference from the fact that she had been locked in alone with Hannah Cornwall when Miss Cornwall had fallen--or been thrust ?--from the window.

"The Baroness Strang is in charge?" demanded Melicent who, herself, had been in charge less than an hour ago; but her power, of course, had been hers vice Hannah Cornwall.

"Naturally the Baroness Strang is in charge," replied the man. Naturally Lydia would be in charge. Lydia, the last of her generation of the Cornwalls. But in charge of her, unless all things had altered during the last hour, would be Ahdi Vado.

"Where is she?" asked Melicent.

"I will take you to her."

"I'll go. I want to see her," said Melicent, trying to free herself from the man's grasp; but he maintained his hold while he escorted her up the massive stairs and to Lydia's apartment.

Ahdi Vado admitted them; or, more exactly, he admitted Melicent, for Sibley did no more than escort her into the great room before he was dismissed.

Lydia was seated, bolt upright, in a stiff, thronelike chair; and as Melicent faced her who closely resembled no one of her sisters and brothers but who yet suggested in some way each one of them all, there seemed to pass in review before Melicent Miss Cornwall as she had been when she first admitted her new secretary to Blackcroft; Everett as he had talked with her and laughed at the threat of fate; Alice across the table from her at the little Belgian inn; and Theodore. Lacking an image of Donald's father, for he was dead before Melicent became involved in the family fates, she saw Donald as he had entered so gayly on that first day and inquired if she had a name.

Donald! Where was he now? Pursuing the plane?

How? With whom? And suppose he overtook the murderers! She had not sufficiently reckoned with eventualities; in her panic of horror, she had thought only of the need of pursuit, of preventing the murderers from getting away. But if they were caught and cornered, what would follow?

"I was informed," said Lydia, in a small, constrained voice, which seemed strange and lost in the great chamber, "that you had fled."

"I went after Donald," said Melicent.

"Did you overtake him?" inquired Ahdi Vado.

"I did."

The Hindu continued the interrogation. "Then where is he?"

"I did not ask him to return. I told him I would. I sent him after the plane."

"After the plane?" asked Lydia. "What plane?"

Melicent confronted her. "Don't you know about the plane? What do you know?"

"I know," returned Lydia, "that my sister was thrown from her window."

"Thrown!" cried out Melicent.

"And you, alone, were in the room with her," added Ahdi Vado. "And you alone,"

parroted Lydia, "were in the room with her."

"She fell. Oh, she fell!" cried Melicent.

"Fell?" said Lydia. "How could she fall?"

"She was looking up at the plane--she leaned out the window looking up at the plane that wrote the message!"

"Message?" said Lydia. "What message?"

"Don't you know of the message?"

"Some one was writing--writing in the sky, one of the servants said," admitted Lydia.

"Don't you know what the writing was?"

"Do you?" demanded Lydia. "Do you?"

"It was death again; words beginning with D EAT H written, this time, in the sky."

"In the guilty mind," pronounced Ahdi Vado. "Words written in the guilty mind.

They might have seemed to have projected themselves in the sky; but they were written in the guilty mind."

Melicent turned on him. "But she said a servant saw them!"

"One mind," returned Vado calmly, "can project into another. It often happens.

One has an hallucination; another shares it."

"What words did the servant see?" demanded Melicent of Lydia; and Ahdi Vado tried to stop her, but she replied.

"'Decency,' it began," Lydia said. "She wasn't sure of the rest. What she read was meaningless; utterly meaningless. "

"All the messages have been meaningless," Melicent cried, "but they have all brought death. Did the servant speak of the spelling of the first word?"

"Speak of the spelling?" iterated Lydia. "No; why should she?"

Melicent did not tell her; she was not ready yet for the accusation of Granger to anyone else but Donald. Where was he? Oh, where was he?

"She is evading," said Ahdi Vado; and Lydia, tapping her chair like a throne, charged her:

"You are evading. What happened to my sister? Tell me exactly what happened."

Melicent told her; and, telling, knew she was not believed. She had been prejudged, she knew, before she faced them. Prejudged not so much by Lydia as by Ahdi Vado! For if Lydia believed--actually believed--that Melicent had pushed her sister from the window, could she sit there in this strange inquisition?

Something different and very puzzling underlay all this; and Melicent was glad she had made no accusation of Granger or of anyone.

"Now we may call in the police," observed Ahdi Vado calmly.

"Not yet!" said Lydia.

"Why not yet?"

"Not yet! Not yet!"

It was the resurgence, in her, of the Cornwall obsession to deal, of themselves, with their own fates; of the Cornwall detestation of outside interference, of notoriety and official investigation. It seemed to Melicent also a bit of a resurgence of impatience with Ahdi Vado which Lydia once had expressed. The Hindu felt it and spoke to her calmingly.

"The police must soon appear; all this must come to their attention. It is deplorable but yet better for you that they enter by your invitation."

"You are right, Ahdi," said Lydia wearily. "You are always right. Meanwhile, what do we do with her?"

"Should I say?"

"Will you, Ahdi? Take charge of her, please; and then do about the police as must be done."

"To you," said Ahdi, "I shall promptly return. You, please," he gestured toward Melicent and opened the door.

She went out with him, her wits spinning.

"I shall not enclose you in the room," said Ahdi considerately, avoiding the door which had been Hannah's. "There are plenty of rooms."

"Who gave you the keys?" asked Melicent.

"Who would?" He fitted a key to a lock and opened a door. Suddenly she caught him by the shoulder and spun him about.

"You know I didn't do that!" she charged him. "What's under this? And why are you so anxious for the police?"

She could feel, under her hands, that his shoulder' stiffened; but almost instantly he yielded.

"What one may do, another may not know," he answered in his customary, irritating calm. "I do not like duties; they are always unpleasant; but upon whom could I put this? Perhaps it is better, in any case, to leave you at liberty. To flee is to confess, do you not say? Very well; as you wish, until the police arrive."

"Why are you so anxious for the police?"

"Anxious?" said Ahdi Vado. "I have no anxiety. I can choose, of two courses, which is more advisable. That is all." He withdrew his key from the door and left her in the hall.

Melicent stared after him, but did not follow him, as he returned to Lydia's door and went in. There was an extension of the telephone there; and he could use it, if he wanted, for phoning the police; but Melicent was sure that he would not do so immediately.

She felt she had frightened him from it as she had frightened him from locking her up. She felt the truth of what she had said; he did not believe that she had thrown Hannah Cornwall from the window. Then why had he accused her? Especially when he lacked the nerve to see the accusation through.

He had no nerve; merely a mind and a mood.

Why had he wanted the police--he who had been as completely opposed as any of the Cornwalls to outside interference?

Her thought went from him. Where was Donald now? She wanted and needed Donald as never before. She went downstairs and soon encountered Sibley, who seemed to have been posted to guard the front door.

"Has Mr. Cornwall phoned?"

"No, Miss Waring." Sibley showed his surprise at seeing her unrestrained. "If he calls, I will be here."

"Yes, Miss Waring. I am not to let you go out. No one is to go out."

"Except with Baroness Strang's permission, you mean."

"Yes, Miss Waring."

"Who tells you what she permits and forbids?"

"Mr. Vado."

Melicent retreated to one of the great rooms and dropped into a chair. Her mind was ceasing to spin.

The death message of the Cornwalls again had been written and this time written in the sky; and death instantly had followed. Indeed, it had come before this message had even been completed. Could the writer of the message have counted upon death corning to Hannah Cornwall as it had?

No; of course he could not. He could not possibly have planned it. Indeed, only by accident could he be aware that she had fallen and died. He could not have made his complicated maneuvers in the sky and also have watched her window. No; the chances were that, unless he had since heard from some one here at Alcazar, he was ignorant that she was dead.

Therefore, if he had planned to bring about her death in some other way, he was probably still proceeding with his plan. Having written his message and flown away, he would return to do what next he had planned to do--unless he heard from some one here or unless the news got out.

News got out when you told things to the police. Then the papers promptly had it.

Call the police and everyone knew. Who wanted to call the police just now? Ahdi Vado.

Melicent arose and walked slowly about the great room.

Ahdi Vado controlled Lydia Cornwall who, at last, was the sole survivor of her generation, to whom all the two hundred millions now would come so that she unrestrictedly could give, grant, bequeath and bestow them as she wished. A stake, indeed; a stake for any man or set of men!

Ahdi Vado, in his present position, must step cautiously and circumspectly indeed--especially if he had played any part in the events--(he called them always fates)--

which had brought him to this moment.

But who could connect him with any of them? Granger, it was, who had written the words in the sky, she believed; and Granger and Ahdi Vado had never seen each other, so far as she knew; they had never been in the Cornwall entourage at, the same time; for Granger had gone before Lydia and the Hindu had come.

Some one was descending the stairs. Ahdi Vado. Melicent retreated so that he would not see her and then she approached the front hall so that she heard what he said to Sibley at the door.

"Mr. Cornwall has phoned?" he asked.

"No, sir. And Miss Waring has just asked that."

"If he telephones, say to him that the Baroness Strang wishes him to return immediately; and say nothing to Miss Waring. I am taking a little air. I will be near and soon return."

Sibley opened the door and Ahdi stepped out. Melicent's impulse was to call out to detain him; but her mind told her he could not be departing. No, his place close beside Lydia never was so precious as now.

She considered, for an instant, attempting persuasion with Sibley, but she abandoned the idea for a more direct course. The lower windows of Alcazar were barred and the windows at this level were high, even on the side of the forest; but at the windows of this great room were curtain loops of silken rope. She loosed two and knotted them, tied an end to a massive table, lifted the window and let herself down.

No one noticed her. Sibley soon would feel the winter draft; but she already was in the woods where Ahdi Vado was walking.

She hid behind a tree none to soon, for he looked about not with a mere glance but searching the woods behind him. He proceeded and she kept him in sight, concealing herself. He was, she found, methodical. At intervals of half a minute he halted and looked about; then he went on.

He came, at last, to a little clearing where a garden once had been. He stepped into this open space after a careful inspection ahead and on both sides. Now he drew from his pocket a colored cloth which he shook out and laid on the ground. He put a few small stones on it; he arose, looked about, then produced from another pocket a second red cloth which he shook out, spread and weighted down similarly. He stood back, looked up at the sky and bent, shifting slightly the position of the second cloth; he looked up again then, satisfied, and quickly and silently retreated.

Melicent boldly stepped from behind the tree which had hid her. She felt no fear of him; a cool fury overrode all other feeling. She walked into the clearing.

Ahdi Vado both saw and heard her and he stopped. She glanced at him, saw that he waited at the edge of the trees and she disdained him to study the cloths he had laid on the ground.

They were large kerchiefs of a pattern common enough and spread out, one might carelessly say, to dry. A person coming upon them accidentally would give them no especial thought; but Melicent observed that they were laid with their points toward each other, so they would look like diamonds from above; they were about ten feet apart and directly in line north and south.

They would not be seen, of course, except by some one who stumbled upon this little clearing--or by some one flying overhead. Placed in the very center of the clearing, they would be visible and distinguishable against the gray ground to anyone flying for a good distance in every direction.

With an effort of will, Melicent refused even a glance at the Hindu as she stooped and pulled one of the red kerchiefs about so that it would look like a square, not a diamond, to anyone flying on the line of the river. Ahdi Vado had not moved; so she picked up the second kerchief and laid it down to look like a square to the right of the other and ten feet away. Having changed both the positions and pattern of the kerchiefs, she straightened and faced the Hindu.

"Is that the opposite signal position, Ahdi?" she said.

"Opposite?"

"Have I placed them now to mean 'Come on with our plan' ?"

"Plan?"

"You had them placed to say 'Never mind any more; she's dead.' I want to bring him back and find out what you meant to do; are they right now for that?"

"I do not," enunciated the Hindu quietly, "comprehend you."

"Oh; yes, Ahdi, I think you do. If you won't tell me whether they're right, now, for what I want, we'll leave them. They're different, anyway. Going back to Alcazar?"

Her cool fury, which left no place for fear, continued to sustain her. She was not afraid of the Hindu at all.

He might be armed; he might not. She scarcely considered it; she was sure he would not use a weapon himself ; he could not even strike with his fists. Personal violence she still could not associate with him, though now she walked beside him believing him the planner of the killing of them all. Poison; the copper spider; the fog; the reheated meteorite; the pinned parachute--spawn, all of them, of his dreamy brain. What else had been planned for Hannah Cornwall and now was unneeded?

With queer curiosity, she wanted to know. She almost asked him, she had become so sure of him now. She was so sure, indeed, that she began to doubt whether the flyer--

he who had misspelled his D-word in the sky--was Granger. For how could Granger and he have met?

Yet Granger, if he went in for crime, was the perfect partner for this mystic, this dreamer; one to plan, the other to perform.

Side by side, and now not speaking, they returned to the house; and his willingness to return did not, to Melicent, deny his complicity. He controlled Lydia; he was sure of her; why should he fear a girl? Moreover, at last he had almost gained his goal.

They entered the great door of the castle. Donald was there.

Donald hailed: "Melicent, hello!" And he spoke to Ahdi Vado.

"Let him go upstairs," said Melicent to Donald. She did not care what the Hindu now said to Lydia; and she feared for Lydia, as yet, no harm. She had to be alone with Donald.

He drew her into one of the great rooms far from others' eyes and ears. "Melicent, I couldn't trace him. I got a pilot at a flying field to take me to a couple of airports. But I had no track. He might be anywhere. I got thinking of things here--and of you; so I flew back."

"You're just in time, I think!"

"For what?"

"Him--he'll be back!"

"How do you know?"

"I don't; I just think so. Donald, Ahdi Vado here in the house, works with him!"

"Ahdi! You were just out walking with him!"

"Yes; that is partly why I know. You see, Donald, Granger--we'll call the flyer that, anyway--can't know that anything more is unnecessary. They must have had a plan to carryon after the message."

"Yes," said Donald. "I thought of that."

"Well, Ahdi had to get him word to do nothing more. He thought, first, he'd send word through the police."

"Through the police?"

"By calling in the police; that would make it public, so Granger could read what happened. Maybe I stopped Ahdi from calling the police; maybe he figured that way would be too slow. He couldn't phone Granger or he daren't; so he spread signals to the sky."

"Signals ?"

"Yes; handkerchiefs which he laid on the ground in a clearing out there. He thought he was alone; but I followed him and saw him. We just got back."

"Then he knows you saw him?"

"Yes; he knows, also, that I changed the signals; but what can he do? If he objects, he proves they are signals. He has to leave them alone. I changed them, I said. I figured they meant, 'Don't come; don't do any more; she's dead.' I don't know what I made them to mean when I shifted them, but it must be something else. Anyway, Granger's got to fly over them to find out what he's to do--or if he's to do nothing.

There're always aeroplanes flying along the Hudson. He could fly along the river, no one suspecting anything. He wouldn't use the same plane as before, I suppose."

There were few more words and Donald was gone.

Gone again from her; and again into the air. For his pilot, he said, was waiting on a frozen field a mile away. The pilot, Frisby, had been a pursuit flyer in the war and, in the years since, had thousands of hours in the air. He could do anything.

But Melicent had no inkling of what such a man could do until she saw it. She thought of Donald and Frisby finding Granger's plane and merely pursuing it until it came to the ground somewhere. She was wholly unprepared for what she witnessed from her window.

Aeroplanes passed, now and then; on the tail of each swooped a gray-barred monoplane which showed two open cockpits; two shoulders and heads. Then the gray-barred plane swerved away. Blue wings appeared and followed the west bank of the river, flying northward; and from below a cloud--a few clouds specked the sky--the gray-barred plane materialized. It was over the blue wings; it seemed almost to scrape the blue machine; and then it did not turn away.

It swept above and in front of blue wings, bearing it down. At frightful speed and there in the air, it cut across the blue aeroplane's path like a speeding car forcing another to the curb.

Melicent stood up, violently shaking. In the double cockpit plane, she knew, were Donald and Frisby; in the other, Granger! This was proof of their recognition.

Granger spun below them and dropped away. Frisby spun, too, and was on him again. He and Donald seemed to zoom upon the blue machine, willing to collide.

Willing? They seemed to seek collision there in the air; they seemed to offer Granger no choice but collision.

Melicent knew enough to realize that, if the planes struck high in the air, the pilots could jump in parachutes. So Donald and Frisby were willing to leap if they could force Granger to leap, too.

She watched them, her hands clenched and damp with cold perspiration. Donald would leap again, if he could make Granger leap, too! Donald, who had leaped and, after landing, had found the body of Theodore whose parachute had not opened. Suppose his now was pinned, too!

She was holding her breath and she gasped with relief when she saw Granger had got away. Frisby missed a maneuver; now he was on the blue plane again. They passed close by and puffs of haze floated from Granger's cockpit; she could see his arm outstretched; he was firing a pistol.

Donald didn't fire back; nor Frisby. Were they hit, one of them? Donald hit? She couldn't see. She could see only that the gray-barred plane was upon the blue machine and dogging it down. Down, down they dogged him. Down!

He twisted and turned; he dropped over on the side, but they did not let him go.

What flying! Oh, what flying! Granger got clear; he righted himself and tried to rise, but Frisby was about and at him so swiftly that the blue plane pointed up too steeply. It seemed to try to go into a loop, but it failed. It fell back on its tail and, lacking altitude, did not right itself, but plunged and crashed into the river not two miles from where Miss Cornwall that morning had fallen.

The gray-barred plane circled over; a boat was steaming up the river. The gray-barred plane flew low beside it and the boat whistled acknowledgment to its signals. The boat headed for the wreck in the river and the gray-barred plane flew away. Melicent dropped into a chair and hid her face in her hands.

After a time, Sibley came for her. "The Baroness Strang asks for you," Sibley said solemnly.

Melicent roused and accompanied him to Lydia's apartment. Lydia, too, had aroused; for the first time, Melicent saw her walking without aid.

"Something has happened to Ahdi!" Lydia grieved and complained. "I was resting here; and he was at the window. He stood there a long time perfectly still and silently as he often does, just looking out at the river. Then he went to his room and would not answer when I called. I can't rouse him! I tell you I can't rouse him!"

Donald returned to Alcazar about three hours later. Many, many people had come in the time between. Police; newspaper men; coroners; Mr. Reese; more police and reporters; physicians. Melicent lost track of them all. They claimed Donald when he came but she had seen him, had a word with him, if not alone, and she knew that he was safe.

It had been Granger in the blue plane, she was told; he had been picked up living but had died two hours later in a hospital.

At last Donald came to her room and they excluded all others.

"He lived long enough to clear up a lot of things, " Donald said to her. He sat on the couch and she sat facing him, her hands clasped by his; and as he told her, his clasp tightened and relaxed and tightened again. "He scarcely spoke to anyone till I came in the room at the hospital. There was nothing the doctors could do for him; he knew it. He didn't seem sore at me, but he set to cussing Ahdi Vado as soon as he saw me. He figured Ahdi must have double-crossed him. I told him that wasn't so; but he'd started talking and wanted to go on. He seemed to want to clear himself of the Belgian fog. That was too much for him; I mean it was too much for him to have us believe he'd had a part in poisoning the fog and killing all those people. The fog wasn't poisoned by anybody. It just happened.

"Here's the way it all was. Granger, as Reese told us, used to work in Reese's office. For years he cut coupons for the various members of my family, collected rents, made deposits and in general saw to increase of the family estate. It got his goat. He knew all the details of the will and how two hundred millions would all pile up in the possession of the last survivor, instead of being spread over six. He flunked his bar examinations and decided not to try for the law any more but to try for our money.

"At that time, there was a Hindu also reading law in another law office in the same building."

"Ahdi Vado?" said Melicent.

"Exactly. He was supporting himself by the usual Yogi stunts with rich ladies and lecturing on the mystic. Granger told him about the Cornwall estate; and the thing got on Ahdi's mind, but in a sort of a different way. Granger said that years ago Ahdi, who was always seeing significance in things, saw that five of our family names spelled death and he believed it meant the family would die in that order, leaving Lydia. The L for Lydia, he said, meant 'left,' so she finally would get all the money.

"Granger wanted to talk, but he had to skip a good deal, of course. And I had to fill in some. For the reason I've given, or for some other, Ahdi and Granger went to Egypt and got a job with Lydia, Granger going under an assumed name so he wouldn't be associated with the man who'd been in Mr. Reese's office.

"After a while, Granger left Lydia's employ--he was a chauffeur--but Ahdi stayed.

Granger didn't tell me outright that he killed my father, but he did say he left Egypt to go to South America; and that Ahdi and he were already working together.

"Granger did all the spider business with Uncle Everett. He seemed rather proud of that. He said he paid an honest-looking stranger on the streets of New York to telegraph the message that Uncle Everett received when you all, and Granger, were in the house. Granger brought along the copper spider from a little curio shop; and he found an ice pick and a length of light cord at the house. That was all he needed; and he did it.

"That brings us to Belgium. Ahdi sent the message to Alice and now it was Ahdi's turn to do for one of the family. Granger said he couldn't kill a woman; besides, he didn't dare stay and be recognized by Lydia; so he got himself dismissed."

"Oh," said Melicent. "He made that scene with me so your aunt would discharge him; it was so he'd seem to have been sent away."

"I guess," Donald replied, "he figured he'd get fired for the most pleasant possible reason. Anyway, he cleared the ground for Ahdi Vado, though he hovered on the outside.

He said he didn't know what Ahdi meant to do. He wondered, sometimes, if Ahdi would ever, of himself, do anything. Ahdi was always ready to dream and to scheme; he'd invoke mind and consciousness and set fatal forces, as he called them, to work. He sent the message; and the fog came that killed Alice and lots of others.

"Ahdi didn't do it, Granger knows; but Ahdi himself almost got believing that his message set forces of fate in action. Alice was fated, for she was A and it was A's turn; everybody else that died was fated, for some other reason, or else they wouldn't have died. Ahdi believed it. The messages were always Ahdi's idea; they precipitated fate, he said. He depended upon them.

"The Belgian fog immensely puffed up Ahdi and almost got Granger believing in his influence upon fate. Granger got up the hat sign idea and Ahdi approved of it. A girl paid for it. Granger only asked one thing of me; not to try to trace that girl. He said she didn't know she was doing more than paying for a sign. Ahdi thought up the meteorite. It was a week of shooting stars, remember; and Uncle Theodore was always raving about stars. Ahdi got thinking about what a perfect piece of fate it would be if a man was killed by a shooting star. The idea fascinated him. It might be induced. I gathered from Granger that Ahdi thought of trying to induce a shooting star to strike as he thought he had induced the fog. Granger then got a better idea. Kill a man with a meteor--a real meteorite--and no one could ever prove it was murder. It would be the perfect accidental death. So he got a real bit of a meteor, heated it up and shot it in. He didn't really expect to kill Uncle Theodore with it; but he was sure, from what he knew, that he'd get an effect. He did. Granger didn't say outright that he pinned the parachute; he left me to suppose some things; he only said he followed us into the west.

"So Hannah came to Ahdi in his turn. Again Granger claims he didn't know what Ahdi meant to do. Ahdi said he'd do everything else, if Granger would just write the message in the sky. He claims that the signals, which Ahdi spread, were only to tell him whether he ought to write the message again. If it wasn't seen the first time, of course it had to be repeated; and Ahdi was to let him know by ground signal, if he couldn't reach him any other way. Granger wanted to know what happened in the house; and I told him; and it got his goat some more. He'd done it; he'd killed Hannah; Ahdi hadn't had to do anything. Ahdi hadn't moved a hand; and he was washed out."

"If he'd known," whispered Melicent, "Ahdi was washed out, too. I told you how I followed him and what I said. Then he saw from the window how you got Granger. He knew you'd soon have him, too. It's plain he was always prepared with a way out of too great unpleasantness. He had no nerve. He could plan murder and incite fate and plant terror to kill for him; but he couldn't raise a hand himself. I don't think he could have killed directly himself, Miss Cornwall or anyone. Yet he terrorized and helped to kill five people--or four, if we figure the Belgian fog would have been fatal to Alice anyway. He could bear all things in his mind, but nothing with his body. He foresaw rough hands on him; imprisonment; electrocution, perhaps; and so he put himself to sleep too thoroughly.

Do you suppose, if he hadn't been caught, he'd have sent a message to Lydia, too?"

"I'd liked to have asked Granger that; but I had to stop. They'd put two hundred millions in her hands; and they could control her--or Ahdi could and pass out the money to Granger if he thought it best not to appear. We can only guess what they'd have done.

It's strange to have killed a man, Melicent; even if he murdered three or four of mine; and my father. We gave him a chance to land. We made it clear we'd only follow him if he flew, as we pointed, to a landing field. But he thought he could beat us."

"Donald, I saw it all. Suppose you struck him and you all had to leap; and your parachute--"

She shuddered and was crying, for it was over. It was all so completely over. She knew it; and she said it, clinging to him, for now he had her in his arms. "It's over. I know it's over--over--over."

"Yes, dear; Melicent, darling, everything that is wrong and awful is over; and everything that's right and wonderful is just about to begin."

Melicent sat again in the room which, in the queer, quiet epoch before she encountered the Cornwalls and their fates, she had shared with Helen Crosby. Only Helen and she were there. It was the week after the sensation of the Cornwall affairs at last had left the front pages of the papers. There would be another sensation when one impending bit of news would be out; but this would be of a different nature; and Melicent, now, was telling it to Helen very simply.

"Donald and I are marrying. We're not having a wedding; or even attendants.

We'll each just have a friend along for witness. You'll come?"

"Will I come!" exclaimed Helen, kissing her. Then, happily crying a little sometimes, Melicent told Helen about Donald.

Not a word, Helen noticed, of the money which, Helen had learned with all the rest of the world, Lydia was immediately settling upon Donald and her other nephews and nieces. Helen herself had, at last, to comment on it.

"I should think you'd at least mention twenty or thirty millions!"

"We don't know what we're going to do with it; so we're trying not to think of it.

Honestly. It is wonderful of Aunt Lydia. . . . But there is one thing we're sure we won't do. We'll never group the money again to go to any last survivor."

"And when you have children," began Helen.

Melicent colored crimson. "Yes; we've thought of that, too. We'll start an entirely new set of family initials and names."

THE END

Document Outline

- CHAPTER I

- CHAPTER II

- CHAPTER III

- CHAPTER IV

- CHAPTER V

- CHAPTER VI

- CHAPTER VII

- CHAPTER VIII

- CHAPTER IX

- CHAPTER X

- CHAPTER XI

- CHAPTER XII

- CHAPTER XIII

- CHAPTER XIV

- CHAPTER XV