Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1913-08-14
CHAPTER XVIII.
What Am / to Do NowY

Early morning saw Sweetwater
peeripg 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 mis- even breathing
very distinctly. He was in deep
sleep
The young detectives moment had
some.
Taking from his breast small box,
he placed it on a shelf close against
The partition. An instant of quiet
listening, then he touched spring
La the side of the box and laid his ear,
In haste, to his loop-hole.
A strain of well-known music broke
softly from the box and sent its vi
brations through the wall.
1t was answered instantly by a stir
within; then, as the noble air con-
ssnued, awakening memories of that
fatal instant when 1t crashed through
the corridors of the Hotel Clermont,
drowning Miss Challoner's cry IL not
the sound of her fall, a word burst
from tie sleeping mans lips which
carried its own message to the listen
lug detective.
1t YVES Edith! Miss Challoner's
arst name. and the tone bespoke a
shaken soul.
Sweetwater, gasping with excite
snent 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
oven to be thought real. But its echo
still fingered in Brotherson's other
wise unconscious ears; for another
Edith" escaped his lips, followed by
\ smothered but forceful utterance of
tbese words, You know prom
iEed you"
Promised her what? He did not say.
Would he have done so had the music
lasted trifie longer? Would he yet
complete his sentence? Sweetwater
trembled with eagerness and listened
hreathlessly for the next. sound. Broth
@rson was awake. He was tossing in
his bed. Now he has leaped to the
fioor Sweetwater hears him groan.
then comes another silence, broken
"a last by the sound of his body fall
lug 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
p.inutes longer of fruitless waiting, he
withdrew from his post. The episode
was over. He would hear no more
chat night
Was he satisfied: Sweetwater
imagined the scene-saw the figure of
Hrotherson hesitating at the top of
tae stairs-saw hers advancing from
the writing-room, with startled and
uplifted hand-heard the music-the
crash of that great fnale-and decid-
I'd. without hesitation, that the words
he had just heard were indeed the
thoughts of that moment. Edith.
you know promised you" What
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 and
saution?
Sweetwater dared to believe It,
Could 1t be? Was 1t he who was
dreaming now. or was the event OF
the night mere farce of his own
imagining? Mr. Brotherson was
whistling in his room, gaily and with
ever Increasing vssvs, and ths tune
which filed the vhcas 9,cx uasa