The Yale expositor., 1913-08-14
CHAPTER XVIII.
What Am | to Do Now7


Early morning saw Sweetwater
peering into the depths OF his closet.
The hole was hardly visible. This
meant that the book he had pushed
across 1t from the other side had not
been removed.
Mr.. Brotherson's bed was in re-
mote corner from the loop-hole made
by Sweetwater; but in the stiffness
now pervading the whole building. the
latter could hear his even breathing
very distinctly. He was in a deep
sleep.
The young detectives moment had
come.
Taking from his breast a small box,
he placed 1t on a shelf close against
the partition. An instant Of quiet
listening, then he touched a spring
In the side of the box and laid his ear,
In haste, to his loop-hole.
A strain of wellknown music broke
softly from the box and sent its vi
brations through the wall
1t was answered instantly by stir
within; then, as the noble air con-
tinued, awakening memories of that
fatal instant when it crashed through
the corridors Of the Hotel Clermont,
drowning Miss Challoner's cry IL not
the sound of her fall, a word burst
from the sleeping mans lips which
carried its own message to the listen
ing detective.
1t was Edith! Miss Challoner's
first name, and the tone bespoke a
shaken soul.
Sweetwater, gasping with excite
ment, caught the box from the shelf
and silenced 1t. 1t had done it's work
and 1t was no part OF Sweetwater's
plan to have this strain located, or
even to be thought real But its echo
still fingered in Brotherson's other
wise unconscious ears; for another
Edith" escaped his lips, followed by
a smothered but forceful utteranoe of
these words, You know prom
ised you"
Promised her what? He did not say.
Would he have done so had the music
lasted a trifle longer? Would he yet
complete his sentence? Sweetwater
trembled with eagerness and listened
breathlessly for the next sound. Broth
erson was awake. He was tossins In
his bed. Now he has leaped to the
floor. Sweetwater hears him groan
then comes another silence, broken
at last by the sound OF his body fall.
ing back upon the bed and the
troubled ejaculation OF Good Cod"
wrung from lips no torture could have
forced into complaint under any day
time conditions.
Sweetwater continued to listen, but
he had heard all, and after some few
minutes longer OF frultless waiting, he
withdrew from his post The episode
was over. He would hear no more
that night.
Was he satisfied. Sweetwatel
imagined the scene-saw the figure oil
Brotherson hesitating at the top oi
the stairs-saw hers advancing from
the wfiting-room, with startled anC
uplifted hand-heard the music-the
crash of that great finale-and decid
ed, without hesitation, that the words
he had just heard were indeed the
thoughts OF that moment Edith
you know / promised you" Whal
had he promised? What she received
was DEATH Had this been in his
mind? Would this have been the ter
mination of the sentence had he wax
ened less soon to consciousness ant
caution7
Sweetwater dared to believe IT.
Could IL be? Was II he who wal
dreaming now, or was the event o.
the night a mere farce of his owl
imagining? Mr.. Brotherson wal
whistling in his room. gaily and with
ever increasing verve, and the tune
which filed the whole floor with