The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-11-01
HOW MARROW GOT HIS THIEF.


the plotting paper.
MARROW looked round in some dlsmay
when he had finished. He couldn't
find a single clew, not a thread TO
start a search not thing to 90 upon,
and he made a close search, too, for
the thought Of the G 500 reward made
him strain every nerve.
He was almost giving up at last when
suddenly a tiny scrap of cardboard
fallen between the mantel-piece and
the wall caught his eye. He took his
penknife and began forcing It up. Il
might be nothing, of course, but he
had turned over every scrap OF paper
and every book in the room, and he
would miss no chance.
The cardboard came up slowly. It
was wedged in firmly between the
mantel-piece and the wall, but he
loosened it at last and held it up to
the light
When ne saw 1t he gave a little ges-
ture Of disappointment. 1t was the
photograph of a child. That it be-
longed to EMERSON seemed the last
thing likely.
He called up the landlady and held
1t out to her. She shook her heaa over
it. She had never seen it before, but
it must have belonged to Mr.. Ember.
son she said, for her own daughter
had occupied the room before he had
had it, and the photograph was of no
child they knew.
NARROW looked at it again and made
a note of the photographers name,
which was printed on the back. It
bore the address of a small town, and
he frowned a little as he looked at it.
What had Fred Emerson, a thier, to
do with a little child?
He shut his pocketbook with a snap
and gave final look around.
He was just turning away when his
man came back from the station with
the information that Emerson had
been seen taking a tieket-not to Lon
don, as they had expected, but to a
little place called Staybridge, half way
down the line. 1t was a trick, of
course. He would go on to Euston and
pay excess fare, and be lost at once in
the London crowd.
Still NARROW sent his man to tele-
| graph to the station at Staybridge,
and waited, still impatiently, search
ing the room. for the reply.
1t came promptly. Only one person
had come by that train on the day be-
fore, and that was a mechanic in a
working suit apparently on the look
out for work Evidently it was not
Emberson, and NARROW decided that
his only chance now was to go to
Topping where the photograph had
been taken.
He started Immediately, sending his
man on to London to try to get some
information there, and meaning to
wait for him at Topping. He got out
at little, quiet country station. The
town lay behind it-a sleepy market
town full of sheep and cattle and farm
ers' gigs, and bright with the spring
sunshine.
He found the photographer easily
enough, and there copy of the pho
tograph he had brought from Ember-
sons rooms. 1t had been taken just
about a year ago. The photographer
remembered it distinctly, because the
woman who brought the child broke
down, crying at the finish for no rea
son at all that he could make out.
81 suppose you know nothing of her
do your" asked the detective, and the
photographer shook his head
mo; but she came from place moi
far from here" he said. "At any rate
sent the proofs thereto place
called Staybridge, about five miles
away"
Detective NARROW started a little
Staybridge! He was on the road al
last, SURELY Staybridge was the place
to which Fred Emerson had booked
the place at which the workingmar
had got out! Detective Marlow''
pulse quickened, and ten minutes lat
er he was walking away from Topping
toward the distant village.
1t was a hot walk that day. The
roads we're dusty and he was tireC
when he reached it at last.
He made his way slowly through tn,
struggling houses and quiet shops
toward an inn He would have tt
stop, of course; perhaps for somt
days, certainly for one night
He went in and had some tea, ant
then set out to look around. He wa
all Impotence. The thought of tn
$500 stirred him.
He was remembering with a beating