Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-08
CHAPTER XI.
MR.. PADGER TAKES A SWIM.

MR.. PADGER TAKES A SWIM.
All the following day Mr.. Padger care
fully avoided the neighborhood of Mon
plaisir He could not bring himself to
meet Mary with that dreadful burden on
his mind Vainly he tried TO shake off
the conviction; it was too firmly i'm
| planted, and too amply supported.
| There was no single detail which he had
! observed that did not fall into its place
to increase the certainty of his correct
ness. Each fitted in with the precision
| of a Chinese puzzle.
Mr.. Ennis slight hesitation at the in
quest, his subsequent ill-concealed desire
| to suppress too vigorous inquiry, that
unaccounted for mass of burned papers,
! and his evident embarrassment and anX-
| iety at Mr.. PadgeT's awakened interest
! in them, and lastly, as far as he was
| concerned, his extraordinary assertion
chat he was going to London, that he had
been to London, when he had never left
| WestcliHe.
Unpleasant as the natural conclusions
| from these premises were, Mr.. Padger
would not have been so Mortified at their
undeniable tendency to incriminGte the
! husband had it not been clear to him
| that nothing in the case would relieve
! the daughter of the same or worse sus-
| PIGEONS.
Her implication, if not absolute asser-
ton, at the first inquest that she had
gone straight home after leaving the
! bathing machine on the day of the muir
der and her aWkwardness and the neTv-
Gus chances at her father when she
made answer, heI absolute refusal to ac-
count for her proceedings during the hour
and a quarter which elapsed between
those two events, when it became lmpOs-
sible to any longer deny that such delay
had actually taken place, her agitation
and distress when she did return at time
when it was scarcely possible tor the news
of the murder to have spread from the
scene Of its occurrence, the probability
that she had met her father ii the public
garden, all taken together, formed a
damuing chain of facts which seemed to
relentlessly bind the girl and her father
to that bleeding body.
In spite Of his often repeated asserva-
ton that he could not believe it, Mr..
PaGger did believe it. That Gertrude
| Ennis and her father had plotted tOgther
in cold blood to remove the woman who
T rendered the existence of each of them
uubqarable, that the girl had with her
own hands struck the blow, and that the
crime had been carried out with q posi-
lively. reckless disregard of ordinary pre-
cautions appeared to him to be indisput-
able.
There was only one knot in the thread
OF the circumstance which he could not
unite, and that would probably prove
merely an incident, a smaller detail of
the greater villainy. Who was the man
with whom Miss Ennis had talked in the
garden Of Mouplaisir, and what was that
SonVat al, hnT 70 nar not m l-r1Orv2
I There seemed to be some subtle under
current of evil beneath the main flood of
blootished. Was Miss Ennis, having
conspired with her father against her
stepmother 5 life, now plotting against
him with the unknown? That question
time alone could answer.
In the meantime how was he to pro-
coed? This was a question which he de-
bated- strenuously with himself all
through that long day. Partly to avoid
even chance encounter with Mary,
partly to be free from any possibility Of
interruption, be started for q long walk
inland; and as he passed between the
dusty hedges, and along the veTdant
meadow beneath the whispering trees,
he argued the matter pro and con, with
all the intellect he could bring to bear
upon it.
g The amount OF clrcumstantla l evidence
that he could produce would, he felt Ger
tain, be considered by any magistrate as
sufficient justification for issuing war
rant to arrest Gertrude Ennis and her
father on suspicion, and yet he was re-
luctant to resort TO such extreme meas
ures.
On the other hand, TO do nothing, to
put the whole thing behind him, to re-
turn TO his ordinary pursuits with that
overwhelming mass of discriminating in
formation in his possession, and to act as
il he had never commenced an investiga-
ton into the Westclife murder, was, he
knew well, course of action which it
would be almost q crime TO adopt, which
might indeed render him legally guilty
of compromising q felony.
To go on, he believed fully, would be
TO convert into certainty, and TO earn
for him Mary undying hatred and con-
tempt; TO stop would with equal certainly
bring down upon him his own.
''To be, or not 10 be, - was Quesezal
which seriously agitated MIR. Padger that
day, and he finally compromised it by
deciding TO at all events hold his hand
for awhile'and waitfor further develop
ments.S
I" Nothing is. to se :gained.by undue