The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1917-03-24

- ~ u oLAO\NbBASN
dwelling which adjoined the Charming
residence on the Fifth avenue side
somebody stationed in an upper room
behind those shutters-with a gun of
some sort, Maxim-silenced. That shot
couldn't have come from any other
quarter. Here: take care of Miss Chan
ming, please; don't let her expose her
self. I'm going to have a try for our
gay assassin"
Bent almost double, he ran in the
shelter of the wall to the real of the
half-burned house, and, catching the
low sill of a window, easily swung him
self up and into the library.
The room had barely escaped becom-
ing a total wreck-was in truth little
better; yet there remained of the floor
ing a web of charred and greasy tim
bers strong enough to sustain a mans
weight. Parr picked a gingerly way
out to the entrance hall. found the
stairs negotiable, and within a very lit
tie time vas climbing out on the roof
through a broken skylight. Nor was he
in any way surprised to find the scut-
tie on the roof of the corner house
open-recently broken open, if he read
the signs Alright.
Stealthily, then, automatic in hand,
Captain Parr let himself down into
the ostensibly vacant residence, stole
back through the upper hallway, and
suddenly threw open the door to one of
the rear rooms.
simultaneously a little mar who had
been kneeling at one Of the shattered
windows swung round, and whipped
two shots at Parr from a heavy re-
volyer furnished with a Maxim 81
lencer. PARIS. answering shot rang
brutally loud. The little man dropped
his revolver and subsidized into a curl
ously disheveled heap, quite dead. The
captain delayed only long enough to
make sure that there was no other
occupant of the room, and to verify the
fact, which he had all along suspected,
that the murderer was a japanese.
Left here to discourage any attempt
of ours to break into that vault" he
surmised. THAT means the enemy has
surprised our secrets probably even
now trying to get away with the
loot. . :"
Throwing open the shutter, he called
to Ryley in the garden that the danger
q been done way with, then turned
and set himself to hasty exploration of
the corner house.
He found no living soul therein, but
every evidence that many had been in
lawless possession of the premises not
long since. The place had been Quilted
of its furniture, the trail of whose
hasty removal led Parr to and through
the front door.
AS he ran out into the avenue a cas-
ual-minded policeman, strolling past,
Have you noticed anybody leave
this house?" Parr asked.
i've noticed about two dozen leaving
it-and that's about all they did leave.
A big guy bOssin' the job tells me the
Japanese consul has purchased the
property and is moving every stick out
before refurnishing. Three vanloads
they carted away-and in a hell of a
hurry they were, at that"
(which way did they go?"
The policeman obligingly jerked a
thumb westwards. "They made off
that way" said he. "But where they
were bound, l Dunno"
Parr fancied he could hazard a
shrewd guess. He ran hastily across
the avenue and down the side street.
And, so running, he disappeared for
a time from human ken.
THE HOLE IN THE WALL.
Ignoring the protests of Mr.. Ryley,
Patria crept along under cover of the
wall to the window through which she
had watched Parr disappear, and
climbed through.
Just why she elected to follow him
h could hardly have said.
She was inside the house before she
appreciated hat she had yielded to
what was most probably q foolish i'm
pulse.
The first thing to greet her as she
hurried through the upper hallway was
the grinning mask of a dead Japanese
huddled up on the floor of the back
room and turning from this in dread
and disgust she ran blindly down the
stairs. But she discovered no sign of
Captain Parr-or indeed of anybody
else-and though she stopped at the
front door long enough for a hasty
glance out into the avenue, the man
she sought was by that time several
blocks away.
But this she couldn't know; and be-
lieving that he must still be somewhere
in the house, she pursued her investiga-
tons in the course of which, descend
ing to the cellar, she discovered ire
futable evidence of what Parr had sur
missed to his w satisfaction, if he
hadn't stopped to verify it, that the
treasure vault of the Claiming house
had been looted through a breach in
the connecting wall.
Or was it empty altogether? Had
her quick ears caught the sound of a
footstep beyond that breach? If so, 1t
must be Captain PARIS beyond a doubt.