The Huttig news., 1910-09-24

 If only it would serve her. Hear my story first.' Rapidly he recounted the adventures of the evening She lis tened, eyes intent. nodding in recog- milton of his description of Poritol and Aleatrante When he came to the account of the fight In the porters of fee and spoke of the Japanese with the scar on his forehead. she inter rupted.
 "Ohl That was Maku,' she ex- claimed.
 "Meku?"
 Our butler He must have over heard my father and me"
 Then he knew the value of the pa rers?"
 0rme, that yon have been so roughly used"
 | That doesn't matter" he said They didn't hurt me in the least. And now, what is your story? How did you get on the trail of the bill?"
 We came back from the east few days ago. she began. My father had to undergo slight operation, and he wished to have it performed by his friend, Dr. Allison. who lives here. so we went to our home in-one of the northern suburbs.
 Father could not go back east as soon as he had expected to, and he had the papers sent to him, by spe- cial arrangement with the-with the other parties to the contract. Mir Poritol followed Us from the east r. we had known him there He was al- ways amusing company; we never took him seriously. He had business here. he said: but on the first day of his arrival he came out to call on us The next night our house was entered by burglar. Besides the papers. only few things were taken
 "Poritol?' exclaimed Orme, incredu. lously
 Tt happened that Chicago detect i've had been in our village on busi ness during the day" she went "He had recognized on the streets we'll known thief, named Walsh. When we reported the burglary the detective remembered seeing Walsh. and hunted him out and arrested him. In his pockets was some jewelry belong ing to me. and in his room the other stolen articles were found-everythin except the papers.
 Did you tell the police about the papers?"
 No, it seemed wiser not to. They were in sealed envelope with--with my fathers name on t, and would surely have been returned, if found with the other things. There are req sons why they would have-would try to please my father We did not let them know that an envelope contain ing something of value had not been recovered, and tolds them to make a thorough search
 The afternoon after the burglary the news of Walsh's arrest was tele- phoned out to us from Chicago. l talked with my father, who was not well enough to leave the house, and it seemed best that some one should go to the county jail and see Walsh and try to get the papers. My father had reasons for not wishing the loss to become known Only he and were acquainted with the contents of the envelope; so 1 insisted on going 10 Chicago and interviewing the burglar.
 She laughed. intercepting Orme's admiring look "Oh, it was easy enough. I planned to take our law yer as an escort"
 Did you?"
 No, and tfat Is where my troubles really began. Just as I was preparing to go. MT. Poritol called l had for gotten that we had asked him out for an afternoon of golf He is such a funny player
 AS soon as I told him I was going to the Chicago jail to interview 2 burglar about some stolen goods, he insisted on acting as escort He was so amusingly persistent that I finally agreed. We set out for the city in my car. not waiting to take a train.
 When we reached the jail pre- stuted d telteT WHICH ny IdIneT nd0 written. and the officials agreed to let me have private interview with Walsh
 Orme opened his eyes. The girls father must have considerable influ- ence.
 Tt is horrid place, the jail. They took us through corridor to Walsh's cell, and called him to the grating, made Mir. poritol stand back at the other side of the corridor so that he couldn't hear us talk.
 'I asked the man what he had done with the papers. He insisted that he had seen none. Then I promised to have him freed, if he would only re- turn them He looked meditatively over my shoulders and after mo- ment declined the offer. again insist ing that he didn't understand what I was talking about. I took the other things. miss he said. and I suppose I'll get time for it. But so help me. I didn't see no papers, ]"
 The girl paused and looked at OrIne. This seems like wasting min utes when we might be searching"