Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1911-04-08

these stairs, and he has definite OBJ
ject. He knows of something valuable
in that cubby hole over the mantel in
Miss James room. How does he get
in? The door into the upper hall is
closed and bolted, but the door into
the bathroom is open. From there
another door leads into the bedroom.
and it has no bolt-only key. That
kind of a lock is only three-minutes
delay, or less. Now then, Miss Matt
land was lighter sleeper. When she
Weakened she was too alarmed to-
scream; she tried to get to the door
and was intercepted Finally she got
out the way the intruder got in. and
ran along the hall. Every door was
locked. In a frenzy she ran up the
attic stairs and was captured up there.
Which bears out Miss Margery's story
Of the footsteps back and forward"
"Good heavens, what an awful
thing!" gasped. "And was sitting
smoking just across the hall"
"He brings her down the stairs
again, probably half dragging her.
Once, she catches hold of the stair rail
and holds desperately to it, leaving
the stain here"
But why did he bring her DOWN."
l asked bewildered. "Why wouldn't
he take what he was after and get
away?"
Hunter smoked and meditated.
"She probably had to get the key
OF the iron door," he suggested ut
was hidden, and time was valuable. II
there was q scapegrace member of the
family, for instance, who knew where
the old lady kept money. and who
needed it badly; who knew all about
the house, and who
Fleming" l exclaimed ssiast
Or even our young friend, Ward
rop," Hunter said quietly. "He has an
hour to account for. The trying to get
in may have been a blind, and how do
you know that what he says was
stolen out of his satchel was not what
he had just got from the iron box over
the mantel in Miss Maitland's room "
I was dizzy with trying to follow
Hunters facile imagination. The thing
we were trying to do was to find the
old lady, and after all. here we brought
up against the same impasse.
Then where is she now?" / asked.
He meditated. He had sat down on the
narrow stairs, and was rubbing his
chin with thoughtful forefinger.
"One-thirty, Miss Margery says, when
she heard the noise. One-forty-five
when you heard. Wardrop at the shut
ters.S I,tell you, Knox, 1t is one of two
things: either that woman is dead
somewhere in this house, or she ran
out of the hall door just before you
went downstairs, and in that case the
lord only knows where she is. If
there is room anywhere that we have
not explored"
81 am inclined to think there is"
broke in, thinking of Wardrop's face a
few minutes before. And just then
Wardrop himself Joined us. He closed
the door at the foot OF the boxed-in
staircase, and came quietly up.
"You spoke about an unused room
or a secret closet, Mr.. Hunter he
said, without any resentment in his
tone. 1--WE have nothing so sensational
as that, but the old house is full of
queer hooks and CANNES, and perhaps
in one OF them, we might find" he
stopped and gulped. Whatever Hun.
ter might think, whatever might
have against Harry Wardrop, I deter
mined then that he had had absolutely
nothing to do with little Miss Matt
lands strange disappearance.
The first place we explored was
closed and walled-in wine-cellar, long
unused, and to which access was
gained by small window in the stone
foundation of the house. The cobwehs
over the window mad, it practically
an impossible place but we put
Robert, the gardner, through it, IN
spite of his protests.
"There's nothin' there, / tell you,''
he protested. with one leg over the
coping. GOD only knows what's down
there, after all these years. I've been
Twin here with Miss Maitlands for
twenty year, and amt never been
put to goin' down into cellars on the
end Of rope"
He went. because we were three to
his one, but he was up again in sixty
seconds, with the announcement that
the place was as bare as the top of his
head.
We moved every trunk in the store
room, although it would have been a
moral impossibility for any one to have
done it the night before without
rousing the entire. family, and were
thus able to get to and open a large
closet, which proved to contain neatly
tied and labeled packages of religious
weeklies, beginning in the sixties.
The grounds had been gone over
inch by inch, without affording any
clue, and now the three of us faced
one another. The day was almost
gone, and we were exactly where we
started. Hunter had sent men
through the town and the adjacent
countryside, but no word had come
from them. Miss Letitia had at last
succumbed to the suspense and had
gone to bed, where she lay quietly
enough, as is the way with the old, but
SO mild that she was alarming
At four o'clock Halves called me up