Abbeville progress. (Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, La.) 1913-1944, 1914-01-24
CHAPTER XVIII.
What Am | to Do Now?


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 it from the other side had not
been removed
Mr.. Brotherson's bed was in a 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 deep
sleep.
The young detectives moment had
come.
Taking from his breast a small box,
he placed II 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 well-known music broke
softly from the box and sent it's vi
brations through the wall
1t was answered instantly by a 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 If 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 it, 1t had done its work
and 1t was no part OF Sweetwater's
plan to have this strain located, or
even to be thought real. But it's echo
still fingered in Brotherson's other
wise unconscious ears; for another
Edith" escaped his lips, followed by
a smothered but forceful utterance of
these words. You know prom
Used you"
Promised her what? He did not say.
Would he have done so had the music
lasted a trifle longer? Would he yet
trembled with eagerness and listened
breathlessly for the next sound. Broth
erson was awake He was tossing 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 God "
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 fruitless waiting. he
withdrew from his post The episode
was over
Was he satisfied. Sweetwater
lima gined the scene-saw the figure of
BrothersOu hesitating at the top of
the stairs-saw hers advancing from
the writingrOom, with startled and
uplfted 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" What
had he promised? What she received
was death! Had this been In his
mind? Would this have been the ter
minatien OF the sentence had he wax
ened less soon to consciousness and
caution?
Sweetwater dared to believe il.
Could it be? Was it 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 verve, and the tune
which filled the whole floor with
music was the same grand finale from
William Tell which had seemed to
work such magic in the night AS
Sweetwater caught the mellow but in
different notes sounding from those
lips OF brass, he dragged Torch the
muSc-box he held hidden in his coat
pocket, and fiinging it on the floor
stamped upon IL
The man is too strong for me-" he
cried His heart is granite; he
meets my every move What am to
do now"