Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1918-05-09

those days. And then it dis.
appeared. It was stolen from,
me like other things that had all
ready been stolen from me, at that
And sinking her voice still low
er, speaking her name as if she
were addressing some other WON
an, some unhappy friend, she re-
peated:
Florence. FLORENCE"
Tears streamed down her
cheeks.
She is not one of those who
Kill, thought Don Luis. II can't
believe that she is an accomplice.
And yet-and yet"
He moved away from her and
walked across the room, from the
window to the door. The drawings
OF Italian landscapes on the. wall
attracted his attention. Next hel
read the titles of the books on the
shelves. They represented French.
and foreign works, novels, plays,
essays, volumes of poetry, point
ing to a really cultivated and.
varied taste.
He a Racine next to Dante,
Stendhal near Edgar Allen Poe,
Montague between Goeth and
Virgil. And suddenly, with that
extraordinary faculty which en-
abled@him, in any collection of OBJ
Jects, to perceive details which he
did not at once take in, he no.
tlced that one of the volumes of
an English edition of Shake
speare' works did not look exact
ly like the others. There was
something peculiar about the red
morocco back, something stiff,
without the cracks and creases
which show that a book has been
used.
It was the eighth volume. He
took it out, taking care not to be,
heard.
He was not mistaken. The vol
ume was a sham, a mere set of
boards surrounding a hollow space
that formed a box and thus pro-
ylded a regular hiding place; and,
inside this book, he caught sight of
PLAIN note paper, envelopes Of diff
ferent kinds, and some sheets Of
ordinary ruled paper, all of the
same size and looking as if they
had been taken from a writing
pad.
And the appearance of these
ruled sheets struck him at once.
He remembered the look of the
paper on which the article for the
Echo de France had been drafted.
The ruling was identical, and the
shape and size appeared to be the
same.
On lifting the sheets one after
the other, he saw, on the last but
one, a series of lines consisting of
words and figures in pencil, like
notes hurriedly jotted down.
He read:
House on the Boulevard Cuchet.
FIRST letter. Night of Is April.
Second. Night of 25th.
Third and four. Nights of 5 and 15
May.
Fifth and explosion. Night of rs
May.
And, while noting first that the
date of the first night was that Of
the actual day, and next that all
these dates followed one another
at intervals of 10 days, he re-
marked the resemblance between
the writing and the writing of the
rough draft.
The draft was in a notebook IN
his pocket. He was therefore in
a position to verify the similarity
OF the two handwritings and Of
the two ruled sheets of paper. He
took his notebook and opened it.
The draft was not there.
Cad" he snarled, "but this is
a bit too thick!,'
And, at the same time. he re-
membered clearly that, when he
was telephoning to Mazeroux in
the morning, the notebook was in
the pocket Of his overcoat and that
he had left his overcoat on q chair
near the telephone box. Now. at
that moment, Mile. Levasseur, for
no reason, was roaming about the
study. What was she doing there9
Oh, the play actressl'' thought
IPerenna, raging within himself.
She was humbugging me. Her
tears, her air of frankness, her
tender memories: all bunkum! She
belongs to the same stock and the
same gang as Marie Fauville and
CASTOR Sauverand. Like them,
she is an accomplished liar and
actress from her slightest gesture
down to the least infection. Of her
sn,s~no>n4 ~v 49, $3.50 4&NMs