The Nevada County picayune., 1910-10-07
|||11Ill|(lz9
CHAPTER XXI.
Between Two Fireplaces.


 covery. the walk home under the stars in wet shoes and draggled skirts, and getting upstairs and undressed without rousing Liddy, I was completely used up. What to do with my boots Was the greatest puzzle of all, there being no place in the house safe from Lid dy, until decided to slip upstairs the next morning and drop them into the hole the ghost had made in the trunkroom wall
 1 went asleep as soon as 1 reached this decision, and in my dreams l lived over again the events of the | night, Again I saw the group around the silent figure on the grass, and again, as had happened at the grave, 1 heard Alex's voice, tense and tri- umphant:
 Then we've got them" he said. Only, in my dreams, he said it over and over until he seemed to shriek 1t in my ears.
 l wakened early, in spite of my ia tigue, and lay there thinking. Who was Alex? l no longer believed that he was a gardener. Who was the man whose body we had resurreeted? And where was Paul Armstrong? Prob ably living safely in some eXtradition- l less country on the fortune he had l stolen Did Louise and her mother 1 know of the shameful and wicked de ception? What had Thomas known, and Mrs. Watson? Who was Nina l Darlington?
 This last question, it seemed to me, was answered. In some way the woman had learned of the substitu- tion, and had tried to use her knowl- edge for blaekmail Nina Darlington s i own story died with her, but, however it happened, it was clear that she had 1 carried her knowledge to Halsey the l afternoon Gertrude and I were look l ing for clews to the man I had shot on the east veranda. Halsey had been i half crazed by what he heard; it was l evident that Louise was marrying Dr. ] Walker to keep the shameful secret, l for her mothers sake Halsey, al ways reckless, had gone at once to 1 Dr. Walker and denounced him. There 1 had been a scene, and he left on his 1 way to the station to meet and notify l MT Jamieson of what he had learned. l The doctor was active mentally and l physically. Accompanied perhaps by 1 Riggs, who had shown himself not i eyerscrupulous until he quarreled with his employer, he had gone across l to the railroad embankment, and, by l jumping in front of the car, had i caused Halsey to swerve. The rest i of the story we knew.
 That was my reconstructed theory of that afternoon and evening; it was ] almost correct-not quite. 1 There was a telegram that morning l from Gertrude.
 Halsey conscious and improving Prob l ably home in day or so.
 GERTRUDE.
 With Halsey found and improving in health, and with at last something 1 to work on, 1 began that day, Thurs day, with fresh courage. As MT. i Jamieson had said, the lines were closing up. That I was to be caught and almost finished in the closing was l happily unknown to us all.
 It was late when I got up. I lay in my bed, looking around the four walls of the room. and trying to imagine be hind what one of them a secret cham. Der might lie. Certainly. In daylight Sunnysde deserved it's name; never was house more cheery and open less sinister in general appearance | There was not corner apparently that was not open and above-board and yet, somewhere behind its hand l somely papered walls l believed firmly that there lay hidden room, with ! all the possibilities it would involve.
 l made a mental note to have ths house measured during the day to dis cover any discrepancy between the outer and inner walls, and l tried tC recall again the exact wording of thq paper Jamieson had found (TO BE CONTINUED