The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1906-10-19
THE
BrangWyn Mystery

| greatly perturbed by this misfortune,
though he made much of his regret to
Miss Lees Aunt, and took his leave
with . proper aspect Of detection.
And az he went sauntering back to.
ward the station whom should he see
but Truscott seated in his motor car
and tooling It slowly round the abrupt
| curve from his own drive to the road
way.
"Aha!" said Truscott, waving one
hand toward him. Going to town?
Can give you lift?"
why. thanks" said Alexis. "but
I'm not dressed for It,"
Jump in." cried Truscott. 'I'm not
q road hog. Ten miles an hour is my
pace, and you don't need to dress to
drive with me. Besides, you can
travel sheltered II you like. Antoine
can drive. Let me offer you q cigar"
Alexis accepted the invitation, and
in another minute they were bowling
| smoothly toward London.
"We had a rare sensation down
here on Saturday." said Truscott. Il
suppose you heard about it,"
Down here?" asked Alexis. 81
never read the papers. What was it,"
1T was a MURDER" Truscott an
swered. my wife and l were sitting
in the grounds Saturday night just af-
ter dinner Everything was calm and
peaceful as you can fancy. Moon ris-
ing, nightingale singing, typical tran
quill evening. Two fellows stopped in
the lane ten yards away and began to
| talk in French. read French, Of
course, but I don't follow it when it's
| rapidly spoken. made out that one
| Of them was begging and that the
| other was refusing him, and that was
about all. But suddenly one of them
let out fearsome yell, and when I
rushed out into the lane there was a
great burly fellow lying in the moon
light stone dead"
"Heavens!" said Alexis. what an
adventure!"
'The country was secured for
miles," Truscott went on. I'VE gave
warning at every railway station and
every police station in the neighbor-
hood, but the assassin was gone and
had left no trace behind. Amongst
other things a newspaper man Is a
sort OF merchant in murder. I've dis
pensed a good deal Of criminal in
telligence in my time, but was never
so near the actual fact before, and
can assure you that it is really quite
a scary kind of thing. My wife hasn't
got over it yet, and won't forget the
horror of it for some time, I'm afraid"
"Who was the murdered man?"
Alexis asked.
Mystery" said Truscott. Pure
mystery. It's the most amazing thing
in modern life that a man can drop
out of existence like that and not be
missed. People are always disappear
ing and being sought for, and lost in
darkness. But here's man mur-
dered at ones door, the fact adver-
tised in a thousand journals the world
over, the dead mans photograph cir
cIllated broadcast by the illustrated
papers, and not a soul found to identi-
fy him. Now that man must have
lived a curious isolation. I made out
that he had come down by train from
London. Scores OF people must have
seen him, unless he had the gift of
fern-seed. He needn't have been long
in London, of course, and he may have
been the merest bird of passage, but
it's an odd thing that nobody comes
forward to say, That's So and So'"
"Yes," Alexis assented. Its very
odd"
This" said Truscott, drawing forth
a pocketbook and searching among its
contents, ''is the photograph we print
ed of him In the Record. It's a strik-
ing likeness, and don't think anybody
who had known the man could fail to
recognize him from it."
Alexis took the photograph from
Truscott's hand and looked at 1t. He
gave ever SO little start when his
glance first fell upon it, but Truscott
was setting the contents of his pocket
book in order, and did not notice.
When he looked up Alexis was study
ing the face with an air OF interest.
The body Of the murdered man lay
upon table, and to the waist it was
covered with sheet which had ap-
parently been turned down from the
face by the photographer. The eyes.
were closed, and the man looked
asleep. There was no pain or passion
In his aspect. Alexis turned the little
picture sideways SO az to set the re-
cumbent figure upright, and sat look
ing at It for q long time with his head
thoughtfully on one side.
"Yes," he said at last, handing 1t
back again; 1T looks strangely life-
like, don't you thinkf It's character
istic face. There's sort Of vulgar
force In It. One wouldn't have liked
to have had that man for . master.
You wouldn't have cared to feel that
you were in his power. Look at the
mouth and jaw: very pitilsss. don't
you think?"
"M'yes," said Truscott You're Z