The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1916-05-11
"THE CRIME DOCTOR"
BY f. W. Hornung. Copyrighted by The Bobbs-Merru

thing brought Dollar down agail
, beside the senseless man, bend
ing over him In keen alarm.
He'll be himself again di
rectly-quite himself, l shouldn'
wonder! He may have forgo
what has happened; he muslin
find me here to remind him
, Something he will have to know
and you are the one to break 1
to him, and then to persuade hin
! to come to me.
j but you won't find that 81
easy, Mrs. Dysone, IL he sees how
tricked him. He had much bet
ter think it was your nephew. Ny
motors in the land behind these
trees; let him think l never wen
away at all, that we connived and
I am holding myself there at your
disposal. 1t would be true =
wouldn't it-after this? I'll wait
night and day until | know"
Doctor Dollar" said Mrs. by.
some, when she had risen without
aid and set him to the trees, you
may or may not know the worst
about my poor husband, but you
shall know 1t now about me. ]
wish you to take this-and keep
it. You have had two escapes to-
night"
She barred the wrist from which
the smallest of revolvers dangled;
he felt in the darkness-and left
1t dangling.
II heard you had one. He told
me. And | thought you carried it
for your own protection" cried
Dollar, seeing into the woman at
last.
NO. 1t was not for that
and he knew that she was smiling
through her tears. Il did save
his life-when my poor dog saved
Jim's-but | carried this to save
the secret | am going to trust to
youo
Dollar would only take her
hand. You wouldn't have shot
me, or any man." he assured her.
But" he added to himself
among the trees what fool /
was to forget that they never
killed women"
It turned almost cold beside
the motor in the lane; the doctor
gave his boy little brandy, and
together they tramped up and
down, talking sport and fiction
by the small hour together. The
stars slipped out Of the sky, the
birds began, and the same synic
shouted pretty, pretty, pretty"
at the top Of its strong contralto.
At last there came that other
cound for which Dollar had never
ceased listening. And he turned
back into the haunted wood with
Jim Paley.
The poor nephew-still stun
ned calm-was as painfully artic-
ulate as a young bereaved hus-
band. He spoke of Gen. Dysone
as of a man already dead, in the
gentlest of past lenses. He was
dead enough to the boy. There
had been an appalling confession
made as coolly, 1t appeared, as
Paley repeated it.
He thought | knocked him
down and | had to let him think
so. Aunt Essie insisted; she is a
wonder, after all. 1t made him
tell me things | simply can't be-
lieve.
"Yet he showed me a rope Just
like it-meant for me-"
DO you mean just like the one
that-hanged the gardener"
Yes. He did it, 50 he swears.
He will tell you himself afterward
he wants to tell you. He says
he first can't put my
tongue to it," The lapse into the
present tense had made him
human.
Like the Thugs?"
"Yes--like that sect of fiend-
ish fanatics who went about
strangling everybody they met.
They were what his book was
about. How did you know"
That's Bhowanee, their goddess,
on top Of his bureau, and he has
Sleeman and all the other awful
literature locked up underneath.
AS study for a life of sudden
idleness, in the depths Of the
country, it was enough to bring
on temporary insanity. And the
strong man gone wrong goes and
does what the rest of us only get
on our nerves."
Dollar felt his biceps clutched
and clawed and the two stood still
under more irony in gay con-
tralto.
Temporary, did you say? Only
temporary" the boy was falter-
ing.
81 hope so, honestly. You see, it
was just on that one point
even there | believe he
did want his wife out of the way.
and for her own sake, too" said
Dollar, with a sympathetic tremor
of his own.
'But do you know what he's
saying? He means to tell the
whole world now, and let them
hang him, and serve him right
he says! And he's as sane as we